


Not His Queen

by angelaiswriting (carolinemoore)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, NSFW, Sex, Smut, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-03 01:27:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11521662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinemoore/pseuds/angelaiswriting
Summary: Roan has a lover even if he’s going to get married to Aletheia. His future wife doesn’t like this and shit happens.[Requested on Tumblr - read also on angelaiswriting.tumblr.com]





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [selldraug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/selldraug/gifts).



Roan hadn’t been acting like himself lately and Aletheia feared one of the reasons was the arrival of the Sky People.

She couldn’t say she liked them. Skaikru were too different from them and it didn’t matter that they were open for a peace treaty, or that they wanted to be friends. Their differences were just too big in every single field of existence for the two sides to cohabitate on that planet.

Aletheia was skeptical and their Heda could say anything she wanted: she wasn’t there to accept that union. She was already skeptical about the Krus’ alliance - each clan wanted power: she knew it, Roan knew it, even Lexa knew it. An alliance wasn’t going to stop a faction from spilling the other’s blood. And she feared Azgeda would be the first to make a move.

The sound of boots on the stone floor shook her out of her thoughts.

When Aletheia turned to face the newcomer, she couldn’t hold her smirk back.

Roan had just entered their shared bedroom and was now proceeding to take his muddy boots off.

“Where have you been?” she asked, leaning against the window.

She was scared: scared he might get angry, since in the last few days that had seemed to be the only thing he was capable of doing; scared to know the answer since she already had her concerns. She was even scared of losing him because becoming his queen always made goosebumps rise on her skin.

But Roan didn’t answer. He acted like he hadn’t heard her. He had already taken off his dirty shirt and was proceeding to do the same thing with his trousers.

“Roan!” she snapped, taking a step forward and immediately regretting doing so.

The man turned to look at her, an angry look on his tired face. “What now, Aletheia? I’ve just come back, I’m tired,” and he sighed, but even that faint noise couldn’t chill the anger that, radiating from his body, was making the air in the room boil.

Aletheia gulped and stopped playing with one of her braids. She couldn’t recall a moment in which her hands had been sweatier. “You’ve been out all day. I thought that now that you were finally back…”

“What? That we’d play happy family?” he snapped and his bare feet started to take him closer to her.

Ages away from him had made her forget how afraid he made her feel sometimes. Like she wanted to jump out of her skin and flee the room. Like she wanted to become invisible. She had never been good at handling people, and Roan had proved to be the most difficult man to handle. And it didn’t matter that one day they’d be married: he was not going to fluff down for her.

The thing that scared her the most was the thought that he could be like _that_ with _her_ , whoever she was. And knowing that, all her life, she had loved someone that didn’t or couldn’t love her back in the same way… it hurt.

“That I’d braid your hair and you’d braid mine?”

He was getting closer and Aletheia’s breath couldn’t but hitch in her throat, while her lungs felt like they were on fire, while she couldn’t move, her paralyzed limbs keeping her in place.

“That we would hold hands?”

He was so close now that she could feel his warm breath fanning her cheeks. He smelled like mud, like rain and grass, like the woods around Polis. In a way, he even smelled like home. Not like Azgeda. No, she was pretty sure she smelled like Azgeda too, even if she couldn’t say whether it was true or not, or what Azgeda actually smelled like. He smelled like untold promises that were bound to never become true, he smelled like shattered dreams, like loneliness and fear of not being enough.

Or that was how she smelled. She had a habit of not wanting to see the misery through which she walked, the misery she breathed every day, the misery that numbed her body and her soul.

“What, Theia?” It was meant to be a whisper, but it left Roan’s lips which such anger that it sounded more like a growl, clawing at the skin of her left cheek. “What were you thinking?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but what was she going to say?

That she wanted to hug him? To feel his arms around her, engulfing her, while she inhaled his scent, her face hidden in the crook of his neck?

That she wanted to talk? To hear what he had to say about his ban?

That she wanted to be _wanted_ and _loved_ by someone who looked like he couldn’t love at all?

That she wanted to know she wasn’t ruining her whole existence by marrying him?

That, for once, she wanted to make love to him and not sex?

That, yes, she wanted to play happy family and braid his hair and hold his hand?

That she wanted him in her bed and not in someone else’s?

“If you want the sex you don’t have to be shy,” he mocked her, knowing perfectly well that she wasn’t _that_ blunt.

Aletheia took a step back and cursed the Gods for keeping that close to the wall. “You know,” she stuttered, “you’re right. You must be tired and in need of a good sleep. I will leave you alone.”

She tried to slide to her side, keeping contact with the cold damp wall behind her, but his hand gripped her wrist and yanked her backward.

“What do you want?” he asked again, and this time his voice softened, the ice left his eyes and he found the strength to guide her body closer to his naked one.

She still smelled like freedom, he noticed. Yet, today she also smelled like a caged bird, trying to fly away but too bound to the ground.

“Nothing,” she shook her head while he turned her around so that he was hugging her from behind, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I only thought… But it doesn’t matter anymore.”

She felt so weak she was ashamed to call herself Azgeda. She felt like a fragile bird in a hunter’s hands, but she couldn’t get herself to leave him.

 _I want to know who she is_ , she wanted to ask. She wanted to _demand_. She had all the right in the world to know since she was about to become a queen - and most likely his husband’s whore’s queen. She wanted to know who made Roan’s heart beat like that because she felt like it wasn’t her, not anymore at least.

“Well, I want you,” he stated, his hands leaving her waist and going lower.

He had moved his head and she could now feel his breath on the exposed skin of her neck.

“Are you going to deny your future husband of some sex?”

 _Yes_ , she wanted to scream. She could almost smell _her_ scent, the scent of that other woman and of sex on his skin. Her anger almost made her see stains on his hands, bringing traces of what he had done in another woman’s bed.

She wasn’t blaming him - not entirely, at least. He was a prince and could do whatever in the hell he wanted. But why didn’t he just tell her? She’d leave. She’d feel so much better to know he was with another woman and that _that_ wasn’t a secret. Her heart would be scarred and broken anyway, but at least she wouldn’t have to keep battling with her doubts.

Roan slowly pushed her against the wall, one of his hands going back up to cup her left breast.

Aletheia couldn’t exactly say she didn’t want him. She had craved for him ever since Roan’s mother Nia had sent _him_ away and kept _her_ like somewhat of a prisoner. Aletheia couldn’t say that the thought of having what the other woman had had was stopping her from wanting what was hers by right.

When Roan’s right hand slipped under the hem of her trousers, her breath died in her throat and her eyes fluttered closed.

She hadn’t touched a man in months and no man had touched her. Her body had almost forgotten how it felt like, to have Roan’s calloused hands grazing her skin, to feel her core spasm in anticipation, to have her breath running wild without her being able to calm it down a little.

“Will you deny me of what’s mine?” His voice tickled her ear and she had been on the verge of answering him, of telling him ‘no, my body cannot deny you of this’, but his mouth had been quicker and had gently sucked on her earlobe, a shameful moan escaping her mouth.

She closed her eyes tighter and leaned her forehead against the cool stone wall, her heart going wild inside her chest, Roan’s hand close to her core, _too damn close_.

“Is this a ‘no’, Aletheia?” and he pushed his lips against her back.

Was he lying?

Was he pretending?

Was his cock that damn hard because he was thinking of that whore or because he was thinking of her?

Why did he even have a whore in the first place?

But her thoughts came abruptly to an end when his fingers touched her clit lightly.

“Did you miss me?”

His lips were on her neck, sucking lightly on her skin.

“Yes,” she whispered, glad she didn’t have to pretend. Not yet, at least.

And maybe that ‘fucking a whore’ thing was over. Maybe that had been the last night. Maybe she didn’t have to worry because that other woman was finally out of his (and _hers_ ) life.

“How much did you miss me?” His voice was hoarse, his fingers burning on her cunt and on her breast.

She gulped, trying to focus on a thought at a time, in vain.

Her mind was about to explode, her skin to catch fire, her body to melt into his touch.

“Very much,” she managed to answer and she involuntarily ground her hips against his.

Her lungs felt heavy inside her chest. She felt like she couldn’t move, trapped between the cold stone of the wall and the hot skin of the naked man behind her.

His erection against her back fogged her mind, while her hands, covered in a veil of sweat, tried desperately not to slide against the wall, while her legs felt like they were made of jelly, unable to keep her on her feet.

She wanted to ask him the same question. Had he missed her? Did he use another woman because he couldn’t have her or…? Had he missed her naked body, asleep beside his? Had he missed her hands massaging his shoulders, easing the tension?

“I missed you too,” and somehow his words burned like acid on her flushed skin. Somehow she could feel the lie hiding behind those four words.

But she didn’t have the time to think much about it: in a swift movement Roan had taken her shirt off and had managed to break it in some points. The strip of cloth she used as a bra followed soon after and his lips were suddenly on hers, his chest pushing against hers, her back pushing against the wall.

His right hand had left her pants and had followed the other one and together they were grazing her skin.

His skin was like fire against her own, but in that moment she didn’t mind getting burnt.

She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t _get herself to stop_ , to push him away, to ask for explanations, to demand them. All she wanted was to feel him inside her like before he got himself banned, to feel his mouth on her body - everywhere. She wanted his moans to fill her ears.

“I want to fuck you against the wall, Theia,” he confessed against the skin of her breast. And before she knew it, his lips were around her nipple and were tugging lightly, driving her mad, choking her words at the back of her mouth. “I want to fuck you against this damn wall until you cannot stand anymore.”

And somehow she couldn’t help but want that too.

She wanted everyone to know that mighty Roan was hers and that nobody else had the right to even fantasize of touching him.

Deluding herself was something she had always been good at.

When his lips kissed their way back to her neck, both hers and Roan’s hands struggled to push her trousers below her butt. But his hungry hands and lips had started their descent: down her cleavage and to her stomach, but only after his lips had kissed and tugged at her nipples again, Aletheia’s hands resting through his hair, tugging moans out of what had to be _her_ man and no one else’s.

Aletheia was aware of every inch of their exposed skins touching, of his breath against her belly, of his saliva on her breasts getting colder by the second because of the chill air of the room. She could almost feel every cell of Roan’s calluses on her skin while his hands went lower, while they grazed the skin of her thighs while pushing her pants to the ground.

She didn’t know how he had got rid of her trousers and boots. The only thing she knew was that they were standing one in front of the other, both panting, eyes burning with lust. The sight of his erection, of his glans brushing against his abdomen, was driving her crazy. She could almost feel her own arousal trickling down her inner thighs.

Then, in the blink of an eye, he was on her again and this time he was sucking and brushing his teeth against the black tattoo she had above her breasts. His cock burned like iron against her and another moan left her lips while her hands dragged down his chest until he was in her hands.

But he slapped her away.

“Not today,” he panted, kneeling down in front of her.

He pushed her legs apart while she tried to steady herself against the wall, to convince her legs not to give up just yet. But when two of his fingers pushed inside of her without warning, her knees almost gave up on her. If it weren’t for his free hand, that had somehow pushed her back against the wall, she’d have been on the ground.

A string of “Roan” and “please” left her lips without her even knowing, while her hands fiddled with her hard nipples.

She needed him so badly.

She could feel her muscles already spasming, anticipating his erection inside her, his hands bruising her skin, his teeth grazing her neck mercilessly, his moans in her ears, confusing the edges of the reality around them.

If someone would enter right in this moment, Aletheia wouldn’t even know, too lost in her world, too caught up in all those feelings, with her man’s fingers pushing and curling inside of her.

As abruptly as they had entered her, Roan’s fingers suddenly disappeared. When she opened her eyes, she barely had the time to notice that he was turning her around.

The feeling of the ice cold wall against the sensitive skin of her breasts and nipples made her hiss. It almost hurt, but she didn’t even need to adjust to that: Roan’s left hand cupped her left breast again while his right hand pushed her right leg upwards and angled it so that her knee was resting on the edge of the windowsill.

It was as uncomfortable as it looked, but as Roan’s cock penetrated her and her head fell back to rest on his shoulder, it suddenly didn’t matter anymore.

He went all the way up until his hips slammed hard against hers, then stopped. She heard him taking a deep breath while he slightly arched her back against him. His right hand left her knee, brushing on her skin until he reached her pussy and tapped on her clit.

Aletheia’s eyes, previously closed, suddenly opened and she gasped. Her breathing was ragged, her chest was rising and falling so fast it almost hurt, she almost couldn’t get enough air to reach her lungs while Roan’s thumb drew circles on her clit.

“Please,” she begged him, almost sobbed, when his left hand started to torture her nipple again. She pushed back against him. “Roan, please.” She almost feared he hadn’t heard her whisper, but he had - just like he always did.

She felt him smirk against her neck as he slowly pushed himself almost all the way out. When he stopped, he let his tip tease her while he sucked in the crook of her neck, in the exact spot he knew that would make her arch against him.

Theia didn’t disappoint him, and as she arched back, he slammed himself back in so fast that the contact between their hips hurt.

Roan set up a steady, merciless pace, his hands roaming her body, her moans filling his ears and clenching against his erection.

When the pleasure became too much and he couldn’t hold her like that anymore, he pushed her back against the wall, her breasts leaning so hard against the stone it would leave bruises. He thrust into her, one of his hand pushing against the back of her neck to keep her in place.

Theia could barely feel herself contract around him, too focused on breathing, her hands pushing against the wall but unable to put space between her chest and the wall.

It was too much. Too much pleasure, too many feelings all at once with Roan finally back inside her.

But she did hear him coming, she did hear him grunting a name.

For the first time in her life, she had to fake her own orgasm and she didn’t care that Roan tensed up behind her, probably noticing her fat lie.

But how could she reach it when all he had to moan was ‘Anka’?


	2. Part Two

“So, who’s Anka?” Aletheia asked.

She wasn’t facing him yet, her back against his chest and his arms around her. And yet she knew he was awake. Roan had barely slept that night, and, contrary to what she had grown used to, he had tried to keep the contact between their naked bodies all the time.

He knew. An annoying voice at the base of her brain kept telling her so. He knew she had heard him. He knew she knew - or at least suspected. He knew she had faked her orgasm and he knew it was all his fault.

But even if he knew, even if he was wide awake and had been for hours, Roan didn’t answer.

His breath kept fanning the back of her neck, their legs still tangled. But he had gone still for a second or two and that was enough for her.

“I know you’re awake, Roan,” she spat, her hands reaching his. She dug her nails into his skin until he let go of her. She turned around to face him for the first time since they had had sex that night. Without thinking twice about it, her left hand crashed against his cheek. “Who the hell is Anka?” she repeated, and this time she hissed like a snake.

She was so done, so mad at him. If her actions wouldn’t have a consequence, she’d castrate him right there and then. She’d stab him so many times his organs would find a different way to leave his body. And she’d stab herself for trusting him, for giving in that night, for believing she was the only woman in his life in the way that mattered the most.

Roan didn’t budge. It was almost as though he hadn’t heard her question - but he had. Aletheia knew he had. His jaw had clenched almost on its own accord, his legs were paralyzed against hers, and even his breathing pattern had changed.

She slapped him again, tried to bring him out of that state. And when that didn’t work, she pushed him onto his back and climbed onto him, sitting on his lower abdomen.

“Who the hell is Anka?” she repeated and found herself tired of asking that question.

All she wanted was to forget about that woman. Damn, she didn’t even know what that Anka looked like, but she hated her like she had still to hate someone else. She could almost see those four words engraved everywhere in her man’s skin.

And she hated herself with all her might because she had known and she had bowed down anyway.

Roan kept silent, his hands still at his sides, his fingers almost touching the skin of her thighs. He kept staring at her, his jaw still clenched. His heart beat like crazy and he feared she could hear its hammering sound inside his chest.

When she slapped him one last time, his hands reacted, reaching her wrists and holding tight, not caring whether he was bruising her or not.

“Stop,” he groaned, staring at her dead in the eye. But he still wasn’t going to answer her question.

His grip on her wrists hurt and she could feel tears forming in her eyes.

She hated herself.

She hated the way she felt for him, the  _things_  she felt for him. Damn, she hated him too because she could have so much better, but she was still stuck with him.

“I’m not going to ask you that again,” she whispered and a sob betrayed her more than her eyes could.

And she saw it, that pained look in his eyes. But it was all a lie, she knew it.

“How could you do this to me?” she sobbed again, trying to free herself from his grasp.

“I love you,” he said instead.

Theia shook her head, the tears falling down her cheeks and onto his bare chest. Her heart weighed dead in her chest. She suddenly didn’t have the strength to cry anymore. She didn’t have the strength to fight for him, to fight for herself. And maybe it was for the better.

“Please, don’t say you love me.” Her eyes darted to his own and in a swift movement, her wrists were free from his hands. She lifted herself off him and left the bed.

They both kept silent while she got dressed and he stared at her naked form.

She was ashamed of the marks he had left on her skin - of his lovebites that were now only lies, of the traces of his nails that were now just a sign of his pretending. She wished she could erase them from her body, from her memory. She wished she could grab his moans and kick them out of the window.

How could he do that to her?

She couldn’t hold back the sobs anymore and she let them go, kneeling on the ground, one hand on her face and the other on the floor.

She was so deluding.

Time passed and the sun finally rose when Roan left the bed to reach her, to comfort her, to fill her ears with even more lies.

How could she do that to herself?

“I’m glad you have to marry me anyway,” she suddenly exclaimed and stood on her feet.

When she turned, they were inches apart. Roan looked like he didn’t care that he was still naked. He looked like he didn’t care that she was crying, that her heart was dying. He looked like he didn’t care that he was cheating on her with…  _her_. The other woman.

She was going to find out who that Anka was and she was going to rip her heart from her chest right in front of him. Then she was going to shove it down his throat and she was not going to regret a thing.

“You’ll have to put up with me until the day we both die,” she smiled, getting closer to him until their chests almost touched. “And when you don’t expect it, I will break your heart.”

Roan laughed and the bitter sound filled the room. “I am a prince, Aletheia, I can do what I want,” he reminded her.

Aletheia smirked and tilted her head to the side. Her hands moved to reach his waist and went up, caressing lightly his nipples as they kept going. She stopped them around his neck and gripped him lightly. “I am going to be a queen, Roan. I can do what I want, too, and you won’t be able to stop me.”

With the sound of another slap, she was gone. She left their room and didn’t look back, didn’t act like she heard him yelling her name while he frantically looked for some clothes to put on.

When he went outside to find her, he was surprised to learn she had taken a horse and had left.

“She said she was gonna be back before sunset,” someone told him, but he didn’t really pay much attention to those words.

 

“Where have you been?”

Roan’s voice made her jump.

She turned around in the stables before she had any chance to secure her horse in its box.

The man stepped away from the wall and reached her. One of his hands took the one with which she was holding the reins and intertwined his fingers with hers.

Theia was too surprised to answer his question. She stared at him while he freed the horse from the saddle and the reins and didn’t complain when he led her outside.

“Where have you been?” he asked again, guiding her into a building in which he knew no one would bug them. “I was worried.”

She laughed. “Oh, really?” She looked at him and shook her head. “Should I be sorry?”

“Stop acting like this,” he demanded, cornering her into the wall, making sure she didn’t have a way out of that talk before he was done with it.

“Oh, I will,” Theia promised. And even though her hands had gently reached his hair, they were now tugging angrily, her nails almost digging into his scalp. “Who is Anka?”

Roan sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. His hands traveled down until they reached her hips and squeezed lightly, his own hips pushing closer to hers.

“I love you.”

“I asked, who is Anka?” She gritted her teeth, her fingers still through his hair.

Roan’s eyes were closed, his lips only millimeters from hers.

“If you want me to say that I love you too, answer me. Who is Anka?”

“Just a whore.”

Aletheia swallowed hard, doing her best to keep her anger at bay, to not let it out just yet.

The cool wind of the dying day whistled in the empty room while it sneaked in under the door and through the broken windows.

 _What a romantic place_ , she found herself thinking and if she was in another situation she’d let go in a bitter laugh.

“‘Just a whore’?” she quoted him, pushing his head back a little so that she could stare into his eyes. “And why did you moan her name yesterday? Why do you have a whore? Why do you even need one?” she demanded and bit back on the impulse of slapping him again. Her palm still hurt from the harsh slaps she had given him that morning. But she wasn’t in the good mood to be nice, too.

She wanted to scream. She wanted him to feel the way she did.

“Are you seriously mad because I moaned another woman’s name?” He sincerely looked surprised and took a step back, but his hands didn’t leave her body.

Theia chuckled. “Shouldn’t I be?” She frowned and took a step forward. “Have you gone insane?”

“I should be more offended ‘cause you didn’t cum last night, you just pretended.” He pushed her back hard and her back slammed against the dirty wall.

Aletheia opened her mouth to bite back, but what was she supposed to say? Was he even for real? “Then you should step up your dick game.”

Roan frowned, his head slightly tilted to the left. “Excuse me, Lethe?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, you know,” she let her gaze wander around the room. She couldn’t say she wasn’t enjoying this because it would be a lie, just like saying she wasn’t scared of his possible reactions was a lie. “You give it all to her and I have to fake.”

Aletheia saw it coming. It was no news that insulting Roan of Azgeda meant being punished. And he wasn’t scared of hitting a woman.

That’s why she found herself leaning against the wall, her left hand covering her bruised cheek. It felt like stings were in her eyes and for the millionth time that day she found herself biting back the tears.

It was well deserved, she knew it. She had insulted him - and she had also lied. But in that moment it didn’t matter. She was hurting him, whether he showed it or not. She was hurting him and she found her heart less heavy, less scarred - at least in that moment. She knew the scars would be back, she knew the pain would be back, just as she knew she was going to be back with him and he with his whore.

She laughed bitterly, but she felt like she needed it, even though it wasn’t a happy laugh, even though it wasn’t warming her heart up.

“Repeat it,” he growled.

But Lethe kept laughing, kept holding her cheek, kept biting back the tears that were threatening to roll down her cheeks, bringing all the pain with them.

“Repeat it!” he ordered and his scream echoed in the room.

“Step up your dick game or have me faking it,” she answered, standing taller, her back straighter. He could beat her all he wanted, could make her spit blood, could bruise her, break her. She wasn’t going to bow down again. She had a dignity and she loved the wrong man. She wasn’t afraid to drink one more glass of pain when all she had inside was an ocean.

He slapped her again, and this time it didn’t hurt like the previous one even if he had used all his strength.

And in that moment her laughter died and she started to cry again. It wasn’t for the pain. It wasn’t because Roan was beating her. It was because she had lost him, because she hadn’t been with him while his ban. It was because another woman had sneaked in under his blankets and had warmed a bed that didn’t belong to her.

It was because she was now doomed, because he wasn’t going to leave that girl, because she would have to put up with that Anka until the day she died.

It was because she knew this story wasn’t going to end well.

And because she could do nothing to stop it and to save herself.

“You killed me,” she whispered, brushing away the tears with her hands.

Roan took a step back, taken by surprise by her words.

“You killed me the first time you fucked her and you killed me yesterday when she was more important than me.” A sob shook her whole body and Aletheia was finding it difficult to breathe. She couldn’t see for her own tears were blinding her, burning her, biting at her cheeks like snakes. “ _Me_ , Roan,” and she beat her hands against her chest, emphasizing her words, trying to convey all her feelings, all her pain with that simple act. “Me,” she whispered, backing against the wall for she knew her knees were about to give up on her. “We are promised to each other. You promised me your utter loyalty, just as I promised you mine. I could have had your whole army,” and she chuckled, her tears choking her. “She’s more important than me, but what did she do for you? She gave you sex? A good blowjob? I fought for you!”

“Lethe-”

“I fought for you, I defended you in front of that whore you call ‘mother’. Did she do that? Did she get whipped for trying to bring you back? Did she get tortured?” In the blink of an eye, she was on him, punching his chest with all her strength. “Did she get to lose her child because she loved you so much to defy her own laws?”

Roan took her hands, but not with the same strength he had used that morning. He was almost gentle, but it was all a lie, Aletheia kept repeating herself. It was just a facade to keep her from breaking and from dying for real.

He didn’t care.

He probably never had.

“Did she?” she asked tiredly, and her eyes bore into his, begging him for an answer, for a  _lie_ , for whatever could keep her from falling to the ground, broken.

But he didn’t answer. Apparently, during his ban, Roan had developed the habit of not answering the questions not even of the woman he was supposed to love.

“I’ll answer this for you since you’re not man enough and your balls are too small,” she spat, disappointed, while the world felt like it was crumbling down on her shoulders and inside her empty womb. “No, she didn’t. And I’m glad that kid is not here to see its father being a dick towards its mother.”

“But…” Roan tried to talk, but Lethe had had enough of his shit. Of him not answering. Of him lying. Of him accusing her of pretending when he was the one doing so.

“‘But’ what? Hm, Roan?” She smirked, tears still burning like acid while they fell, cheeks still stinging from him slapping her. “‘I love you’?” She made fun of the constant words he kept swearing her. “That’s not enough. Not anymore. And you can sleep on the floor tonight ‘cause I won’t be sharing my bed with a manwhore ever again. Or go shove your dick down her ass, I don’t care anymore.”

He stood still for what felt like ages, while her words -  _all_  of her words - sank into his brain. Then, when he managed to get back in control of his muscles, he chased after her.

Lethe was nowhere to be seen, but he knew where to find her - in the same place he had always found her when things hadn’t started to rot.

“Roan!”

He grunted. “Not now,  _Wanheda_.”

“But this is important!” Clarke had grabbed his wrist and had tried to stop him.

But he freed himself from her grasp. “I’m quite sure this is not more important than my future wife,” he bit back. “Tomorrow,” he promised and started to run.

His heart was running faster than his legs, faster than his breath, faster than his brain.

What if he had lost her?

What if one day he wouldn’t have a Lethe to go back to?

What if one day she would have a man that wasn’t him?

Running up the stairs of the building he slept in two steps at a time, his lungs felt like they were turning into stone, while his brain felt like it couldn’t work anymore.

What was a fucking whore anyway?

Just one more vagina to fuck. How could Aletheia not see that? How could she not understand that?

He didn’t have her while he had been away from her - what had he been supposed to do? Masturbate until the end of time?

_Of course not!_

The doors to his chambers opened with a loud  _bang_  and the noise startled Lethe. She was sitting on the bed, her shoulders facing the entrance. She was loosening her braids and Roan could almost see the pale color of her skin and the black one of her tattoos underneath the light nightgown she was wearing.

She was planning on missing dinner, he noticed.

“Love,” he whispered when he climbed the bed and crawled behind her.

“Don’t,” she warned him, her voice a weak breath in the fading light of the sunset. “Don’t, please. I’m not strong enough for this.”

“I love you, Theia,” he sighed, his lips brushing lightly against her cheek, that same cheek he had slapped with all his might.

She shook her head and moved away from him, still not facing him. She didn’t even look in his direction from the corner of her eye for she knew his sight would just hurt her more. “No.”

“But it’s true!” He stood from the bed and kneeled down in front of her. He took her face in his hands and forced her to meet his gaze. Her eyes were red and puffy and something kept telling Roan she still had tears to cry that night.

Lethe tried to free herself from his hands. His skin felt like it was burning and she didn’t have the strength to put up with his moods. “How can it be?”

“I thought about you every day I spent away from you,” he confessed.

Her bitter laugh filled the air, but it was almost a whisper and its sound lost itself in the raging wind that had just risen. “I have reasons to doubt that.”

Roan sighed again and his gaze fell on her bruised knees. He so desperately wanted to touch them, to caress their once immaculate skin. “What can I do to prove my love to you?” he asked.

“End this story. Stop fucking around,” she begged him.

And she stared at him and kept staring, kept begging with her eyes, kept hoping in the lies she wanted to believe in order to survive, kept deluding herself into loving him.

But his silence was worse than any ‘no’ for that lack of words showed her the truth: he was not going to give up on Anka and Lethe wondered what that woman had that she didn’t.

“You don’t need to delude me anymore, Roan,” her voice broke on his name and his hands slipped from her face. “I get it,” she nodded even if she  _didn’t_  get, even if she  _couldn’t_. She still had hope but she knew that that hope was just going to slowly kill her. “You’re sleeping on the floor.”

And while she covered herself with the furs, her heart sank so low she couldn’t feel it anymore.


	3. Part Three

Roan had left their bedroom in the dead of night and Lethe had laid awake ever since. She kept listening to the feeble sound of her breathing, but she was having a hard time trying to catch the beating sound of her heart.

She had feared she had died a few times in the last few hours and she was fighting against the panic and the anxiety rising inside her chest and mind.

What had she done wrong?

Had she not pleased him?

Had she disrespected him somehow?

She turned in the bed, caressed the side Roan had always slept him. It had been the right decision, making him sleep on the floor, but a voice inside her head kept tormenting her with an endless series of ‘but’.

Maybe she should have just shut up. After all, he was right: he was a prince, he could do anything he wanted. And what was she? Just an unlucky girl that had been promised to him? She had no power over him, at least not before their wedding would be celebrated. She barely had power over her own body, she found herself realizing.

What was going to be of her? Just one of the many? Just an endless series of a one-night stand, before he ran back to that Anka?

Because she was sure he was with her now. He had been all night long and Lethe could almost hear their moans mixing with her dying breath.

When she brought her hands to her face to move some locks of hair behind her ears she noticed wet tears on her cheeks.

What was he doing to her?

She couldn’t remember a moment in her life in which she had cried so much, in which she had felt so dead inside.

Lethe had just stood up to sit and ponder what options she had to save her already damaged heart when the doors to her chambers opened violently and a blonde girl stepped inside, her breath short. She recognized her as one of the Sky People, probably Clarissa if she had understood her name correctly, and her rage came back.

“What now?” she spat, her hands grabbing the furs and turning into fists. “Is  _Klarissa_   _kom Skaikru_ one of his whores too?” Lethe had started to see red and if the nails of her thumbs hadn’t been stuck in the flesh of her index fingers, she would’ve jumped out of the bed to open a hole in her throat.

The girl furrowed her brows. “I’m Clarke,” she corrected her, standing still in the same spot in which she had stopped. “And I’m no whore.”

“What do you want then?” Aletheia asked.

She was pissed. Where the fuck were the guards? Why did they let this thing in?

She hated how that Clarke didn’t look half as broken as she did. She came from space and yet she looked more of a grounder than Lethe herself did.

“I came to talk to Roan,” the girl shyly answered while Lethe got out of bed.

All her muscles hurt like she had run a marathon.

“Well, do you see him around?” Theia laughed while taking her nightgown off. “‘Cause I don’t,” and she put her trousers on before looking for the cloth she used as a bra. “But when you do, tell him I said he can get his dick cut off for what I care.”

“Still in a bad mood?” Roan’s voice asked and Aletheia paralyzed. Her heart suddenly felt like it was beating again while she struggled to cover herself. She felt like she didn’t want him to see her naked anymore - but she knew too well she would give in if it was what he wanted. She was not strong enough, not brave enough.

She didn’t answer him. Hers wasn’t a bad mood. Or it was, but he knew he was the reason and he still didn’t care. And so, neither did she.

“We need to kill your mother,” Clarke suddenly spoke up and both Aletheia and Roan’s eyes were on her.

Lethe took the nearest weapon she could find and was almost disgusted to notice it was one of Roan’s daggers. She let it fall to the ground as though it had burned the palm of her hand.

“What?” she exclaimed.

She hadn’t understood correctly. It  _had_  to be like that.

Clarke shrugged her shoulders as if she were talking about the weather and turned to look at Roan. “We need to kill her.”

“Well, excuse  _you_ , little space thing!” Lethe’s eyes were open wide. Her heart was beating so furiously it was hurting her, almost breaking her ribs, she was sure of it. She shook her head. Whether she was going crazy or this was some sort of nightmare.

Of course, it had to be a nightmare: Roan was approaching her and trying to grab her hands while in real life he should know she would bite them off with her own teeth.

“Let her talk, Lethe, I’m curious,” Roan sighed, giving up on being gentle and grabbing her by her shoulders to keep her in place and stop her from attacking the other girl. He knew she was going to do something horrible, he could read it in her eyes.

Aletheia would’ve wanted to hiss something along the lines of ‘don’t you dare call me that again’ and ‘you don’t have the right to call me ‘Lethe’ anymore, you son of a bitch’, but her teeth were clenched together so hard that she feared they had fused together.

“If she lives, Lexa is in danger,” Clarke explained. “And if Lexa is in danger, my people is in danger too. We  _need_  this coalition.”

Lethe shrugged her shoulders and tried to free herself from the man’s grip, but she wasn’t strong enough. “No one will kill Nia,” she groaned, trying to punch Roan.”

“I thought you hated my mother,” the man muttered, his eyes closing a little, his grip on her shoulders getting weaker.

Clarke took a step in their direction and Lethe’s eyes burned up with rage. “Listen, I’m not saying we should cut her throat or anything, Roan. A little poison in her food will be good enough to get her out of the games for good.”

“I said you two are not killing anyone,” and with those words, Aletheia was finally free from Roan’s hands burning her skin through her shirt. “If this bloody plan gets any further, I won’t stay behind and watch as my Queen gets murdered by two idiots. And if I come to know that Lexa is involved, I’ll make sure she dies in the slowest and most painful way possible.”

“If my mother dies, I become King,” Roan pointed out, trying to get her to reason.

Aletheia turned to look at him in the eye. She pretended to be lost in thought for a few seconds, her head tilted to the side and then smiled. “I know. And if I can delay your coronation even for one day, I will.”

The man furrowed his brows. What was she talking about? Why would she want that? “Why?” he simply demanded.

“She’s the only one that can stop whatever madness is going to happen between the two of us when you’re King, I thought it was obvious. If she dies, I’m doomed and I have to marry you. But if she lives, I get a chance to be banned and never see you ever again.” Aletheia’s head hurt: it was as though someone was hammering its inside.

Was Roan really so stupid to not see why she wanted that monster to live?

Or maybe he just didn’t care, seen that he was going to take her anyway, whether she wanted it or not. Maybe that was his plan, she thought. Force her into that marriage just so he could have more power to keep her whore. But if she wasn’t good enough, why didn’t he take Anka instead? He looked like he liked her better anyway.

“Clarke,” Roan gritted his teeth and turned in the direction of the blonde girl. Lethe’s eyes never left his face while they tried to set it on fire. “You may leave now.”

“But I thought-”

Roan cut her mid-sentence. “Wait downstairs. I’ll come to discuss this matter when I’m done here.”

Theia waited for the space girl to leave and close the doors behind her before speaking up again. “‘When I’m done here’?” she spat. Her hands were hitching because of her burning desire to kneel down, grab the dagger she had let fall and stab his dick with it. “What am I? Just some business you have to get done with?”

He slapped her hard and this time she hadn’t seen it coming. “I’m tired of your tantrums, Aletheia. What have I done to you to receive this payment?”

“Well, I hope you’re kidding me right now, Roan!” Saying that Lethe was furious was an understatement. She was more than furious, she was  _murderous_. And she would have gladly thrown him out of the window if she could.

“This hatred you have for Anka must die  _now_ , or I swear I’ll tie you up in here until the day we’re married.”

“So now you’re on name terms with a whore? I have all the right in the world to feel indignant, to feel mad and to want to kill her and castrate you. What have I done to you to make you treat me like I’m nothing? It disgusts me that my own sister is one of your best body guards. If it were for me, I’d have her to leave your side for good.”

Roan took a step forward and his hand closed around Lethe’s throat. It looked like he didn’t care that that grip was hurting her and making her see stars. “Echo stays where she is. Even when you’re my wife, she will remain where she is.”

“Well, then I hope she kills you while you try to kill your mother!” she managed to say with the few breaths she had left.

He slapped her again and his hand left her throat just to reach his belt. “I don’t like you trying to protect the woman who sent me away for nothing,” he stated while unbuckling his belt.

Aletheia tried not to gulp, her eyes focused on the movements of his hands. Was he going to take her?

He grabbed her by her wrists and forced her to walk backward until she reached the bed. He pushed her onto the mattress and as he had expected she crawled backward out of fear just to have him tie her wrists to the wooden headboard of the bed. “I don’t like you saying you want to delay my coronation,” he continued, positioning himself between her legs and grabbing her thighs so tight Lethe squinted her eyes in pain. “I don’t like you behaving like this towards  _me_.”

They stared at each other for many minutes, the only audible sound being her fearful breaths.

Roan’s hand reached out to grab a strand of her hair, so fair it almost looked white and tucked it behind her ear without uttering a word.

Lethe kept thinking he liked - no, better,  _loved_  - to scare her, to hurt her, and in that moment she regretted anything she had done in the last few days. She had always loved to imagine the day she had met Roan again. He would’ve waited with a smile on his face while she reached him, he would’ve hugged the living hell out of her and, as soon as they would have been alone, he would’ve kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

He hadn’t done any of those things.

“Why do you really want her to live? Why don’t you want me to become King right now?” he wondered, his hands still squeezing her thighs.

Aletheia thought of not answering, of staying silent because he was terrifying her, with that mad look plastered all over his face. She had really pissed him off. But what else was she to do? Accept his affair? Acting like nothing was? She wasn’t that kind of person.

“She can break our promises,” she revealed at the end, preparing herself to receive yet another slap. “She can save me from this marriage if I do something so horrible that she decides to punish me - even kill me, I don’t care.”

“Why would you want that?”

“You’re not giving me any more options, Roan. You just…” she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “You just don’t care anymore. You will be King one day and you shouldn’t pretend you love a girl when she actually disgusts you so much you have to fuck a whore to feel better.”

Roan sighed, tiredness spreading on his features until the madness wasn’t visible anymore. “Who said I don’t love you? Who said I’m pretending?”

“I don’t know, you just don’t  _talk_  to me! All you do is fuck me and then go fuck that other woman and minding your business without caring if I’m good or if I need something. You just keep silent and I don’t know what to think of this…” she struggled for words and when she couldn’t come up with the right ones she just gave up. “Of this thing between the two of us. I used to love a man I don’t recognize in you anymore.”

“And is this my fault?” His angry hold on her tightened and his eyes bore into hers with such anger she feared for her life.

“Is it mine, then? Because sometimes when I look at the way you look at me, I feel like you are blaming me for your ban,” she bit back and moved her wrists a little, the leather of the belt biting into it. “I’m not sure you do realize it’s not and that I fought for you. So whatever is going on  _now_ … well, that’s  _your_  fault, sweetheart, and your duty to fix it since I’m already tired of your shit. And if your mother can fix this before you do, since you apparently think that  _I_  can wait, well, I sure as hell won’t stop or kill her. Or let  _you_  or your sky whore kill her.”

Roan clenched his teeth and pushed himself harder against her. “You will be my wife one day, whether you like it or not. Have I made myself clear?”

“Go fuck your damn whore,” and she spat in his face.

“You’ll beg me to stop when I’m back. You’ll learn to respect me more since you apparently forgot how to.”

 

Sitting outside the doors of the city, Aletheia was enjoying the warm sun on her skin. It was something she had always loved, something that in Azgeda she couldn’t exactly do whenever she wanted.

She had managed to free herself and her bloodied wrists were a proof of the struggle she had gone through. Sneaking out of her chambers, somehow avoiding the guards Roan had assigned to her protection, she had managed to brush off her mind the pain coming from those bruises.

And now the sun felt like it was healing her. It felt good, in a way almost empowering. She could feel her heart start to beat again, the skin of her thighs getting warmer by the minute and erasing the sensation of Roan’s fingers on them.

She had even managed to forget about Nia’s assassination and now nothing troubled her thoughts.

“I see you sneaked out,” her sister giggled while sitting down next to her. Lethe watched as Echo laid her sword in front of her feet and smiled.

“Did anyone else find out?” she asked, curiosity filling her voice.

Echo grinned before leaning her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Everybody found out. Roan went mad,” and she turned to look at her. “You shouldn’t provoke him so much, Theia.”

Lethe snorted. “He’s cheating on me, did you know?”

Listlessly, her sister nodded.

“Why is he cheating? I don’t get it. I did all the right things, I softened up for him, I tolerated all his moods - and trust me, he has many.”

“He’s been through a lot,” Echo pointed out.

But Aletheia wasn’t there to listen to her sister defending  _him_. “I’ve been through much more and you know it.”

“Just give him a chance. He’s trying to make things right.”

“He’s not exactly doing it in the right way.”

A rustling sound caught their attention and their gaze followed its direction, just to find a fox running away from an invisible enemy. The women watched as its copper-colored fur disappeared in the foliage and they remained silent until the sound of its paws on the ground disappeared.

“Does he know?” Echo’s voice sounded closer to her ear than Lethe had expected. “About the baby, does he know?”

Lethe nodded and tore a daisy from the ground. As a kid, she had played many times with the petals of that flower, wondering whether an unspecified man loved her or not. She had done that with Roan too, and the flower had lied, it had told her he did love her.

“And what did he do?”

“Kinda disappeared during the night, probably went to that Anka whore. I expected… I don’t know. I knew he wouldn’t cry because, you know, it’s Roan we’re talking about. But… I just keep deluding myself into believing he loves me when he doesn’t.”

“Just because he has a whore it does not mean he doesn’t love you,” Echo mentioned and took her sister’s hand. She stared at her wrist for a second or two before speaking again. “It just means he needs time alone.”

“Fucking a woman doesn’t equal being alone, I hope you know that.”

“I know, but you know how he is…”

“I actually don’t anymore,” Lethe retorted. “I’m surprised you figured him out so quickly. I’m supposed to be the one able to figure out anything about him.”

“Don’t blame yourself. You’ve been through a lot, just like him. And maybe you both approached each other in the wrong way.”

“Of course we did! The first thing he did when he came back was fuck me all night long! I just want him to want  _me_ , but not that way. I want to be able to talk to him and train with him and take walks with him like we used to before he got himself banned. And now…” but she stopped mid-sentence. Maybe she shouldn’t talk about this even if she didn’t like it. After all, it was about Roan’s mother and the decision wasn’t on her shoulders, and that woman had hurt her in so many different ways… yet, she couldn’t bring herself to want her dead, to want her only way out of that marriage to suddenly disappear.

“Now what? You’re pregnant?”

Aletheia stared at her sister before snorting and shaking her head no. “I guess I’m not supposed to talk about this.”

“What is it, Aletheia?”

“Probably just some dark fantasy, don’t worry.” She stood on her feet and brushed the dust off her trousers, her gaze wandering on the deserted road that led to Polis.

“Where are you going?” Echo suddenly looked worried and she jumped to her feet.

“Back inside. Roan is probably murderous by now and will burn this whole city until he finds me.” Aletheia had managed to take some steps in the direction of the city when her sister’s hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back. “What are you doing?” Her brows furrowed on their own accord.

“Don’t.”

Lethe took a step closer to Echo and looked her up and down. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You can’t go back yet.” Echo looked scared and her grip on Lethe hurt like hell.

“‘Yet’? What does it mean?” There was something in the pit of Lethe’s stomach that had just started to burn. She knew something was wrong and that trouble awaited for her somewhere in Polis. Then she realized it. “He is with her, isn’t he?” and with a jerk, Echo’s hand wasn’t on her anymore. “You came here to let him fuck the hell out of her, didn’t you? To keep me here while he did his filthy business.”

Her sister vigorously shook her head. “Shit happened, but it’s not  _this_  kind of shit.”

“What happened then?”

Echo chose to say the truth, for she knew what her sister looked like when her murderous side got the best of her. “The Queen defied Lexa because she thinks she’s inadequate for her role. She wants Ontari as  _Heda_  so that we have a more powerful position in this sham of a coalition.  _And_  she doesn’t agree with the protection offering Lexa did to  _Skaikru_.”

“What does Roan have to do with all of this shit,  _strisis_ *?” Lethe was starting to feel even worse. Something was eating at her brain and she felt like fainting.

Echo gulped. “He’s fighting as our hero against Lexa.”

“And is it supposed to be bad?”

“It’s to the death.”

“And? He’s gonna beat her sorry ass and we will have what we want,” she replied. “There’s no way she will have a chance against him, and you know that.”

“It’s not that.” Echo looked uncomfortable. For a moment Aletheia saw her little sister again, around eight years of age when she moved to train to enter Roan’s guard corps. “He…” She nervously cleared her throat. “Roan accorded to die.”

“Are you kidding me? ‘Cause if I find out this is a lie I’m going to skin you alive,  _strisis_.”

“You’d better run if you want to see one last glimpse of him.”

And that’s what Lethe did: she ran so fast she fell a few times, but always managed to immediately get back on her feet.

Her first reaction was of terror. If he died, what was going to be of her? What would she do? What was she without him?

But then Anka came back into view just as the battle field appeared in the distance. She imagined Roan and her kissing, his hands touching her, bringing her over the edge. She’d have been ready to swear she heard their moans, Roan’s soft grunts, the sound of skin slapping against skin, Anka’s shameful screams of pleasure. And she stopped, her teeth clenching, her strength getting back in her veins.

Roan had spotted her and was now only a few feet away, getting closer and closer.

Everybody was staring, even Lexa, even the people Lethe recognized as  _Skaikru_. She could feel their eyes drilling holes everywhere in her body and she wondered if Anka was there.

“ _Niron_ *.” Roan sounded relieved by her presence. “I’m glad you came.”

“Don’t get your hopes too high,  _niron_ ,” she smiled evilly. “I just came to watch you die.”

 

_Strisis: little sister_

_Niron: love, loved one_


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my @selldraug for many things: lines, (songs to keep feeling feels), the amazing Azgeda wedding tradition, the smoking hot end (it’s her fault this chapter turned out to be so damn long), her daddy kink, moontea, Roan singing and probably other things (among which stalking me on Google Drive).

Lethe hadn’t realized she had been screaming until Roan’s arms were around her and were tugging her away from his mother’s corpse. Suddenly her screams ringed in her ears and she found herself disoriented.

Was that real? Had that really happened?

“It’s okay, Lethe, calm down.” Roan shushed in her ear, trying to calm her as he dragged her away.

But how could she when her only chance at being free had died?

“What did you do?” she almost yelled before Roan’s hand covered her mouth and he pushed her inside the building they slept in.

“It had to be done. But we can still have Ontari as  _Heda_ , don’t worry,” he tried to make her reason, but she was giving him a hard time at keeping her calm. “Don’t make me carry you upstairs,  _beja_ *.”

Aletheia tried to push him away. “Did you agree to this madness?” But she didn’t wait for his answer, she just went on with her rant while Roan tugged her by her arm in the direction of their bedroom. “Of course you did, you ungrateful son! I can’t believe this. Just so you can become King! You’re a crazy rat, Roan!” Then her thoughts went back to her sister and that ‘ _Roan accorded to die_ ’. That ungrateful woman! “I can’t believe you made my own sister lie to my face! I thought you were going to die, you fucker!”

When Roan had enough of her shit, he stopped in his tracks, grabbed her by her thighs and charged her on his shoulder. “Shut up now. I can’t believe you’re making a fuss of this story.” He shook his head and with a hand turned the doorknob. “You should be happy, in a few days you’ll be crowned  _Haiplana_ *of Azgeda. Wasn’t this your dream?”

That question shut her up and Roan finally managed to put her down before hurrying to lock the door.

“The Queen in the tower? Is this how you plan on having me?” she yelled, jumping on his back before he could get away from the door. “You killed your own mother to quicken things up! How could you?”

“This was the only way to keep us safe: I had to make sure you didn’t leave me.”

“You don’t need me anymore, why keep me?” She stopped fighting and slid down again until her feet touched the floor.

Roan quickly turned around and Lethe feared he was about to slap her again. She winced and tried to escape from his hold, fear running through her veins even though she hated it. “I’m not going to hurt you again, I swear,” he promised, his hands still lingering on her cheeks. He hated the scared look flashing in her eyes. He sighed and pulled her closer until their foreheads touched. He watched as her eyes fluttered close and her shaky breath fanned his lips. “I always need you, you just can’t see that,” he confessed, leaning closer until their lips touched, but she didn’t kiss him back. She just stood there, paralyzed.

What had he done? He had never seen her that scared of anyone or anything before. She had always been this fierce creature, this fearless fighter, and now… It hurt him to know that  _he_  was the cause of her behaviour. He and his affair and his fear of losing her. But what if someone brought her away from him? He’d have Anka - a replacement, yes, but at least he wouldn’t be alone. He had been alone for so long that the mere idea of Lethe away from him terrified him. It made him weak and he couldn’t afford to be weak.

“Lethe, promise you won’t leave me,” he whispered against her lips, pleading with his eyes.

She let out a shaky sigh before lowering her head. It had been clear from the beginning that she wasn’t able to say ‘no’ to him. It had all started six year before, when she had been eighteen and he twenty-two. He had seen her with Echo, he had claimed her and she hadn’t said ‘no’. And when his mother had made them propose, seeing in her black blood a new source of power, she had still said ‘yes’.

“I won’t, I promise,” she guaranteed and stood on her toes to kiss him. She stopped close to his lips, so close they were almost touching, so close that their skin tingled in anticipation. “But promise me you’re mine like before this whole story happened.”

“I promise,” he assured and she believed him. “Yours, and no one else’s, not now, not ever. I belong forever with you.”

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” she warned him. “You know this, right?”

He nodded and when he did, she pushed up and briefly kissed him.

And then he had to ruin everything. “I’ll have the wedding organized for tonight,” he announced, his bloodied hands caressing her arms, her hair standing on edge. “You should probably get ready and take a bath.”

“I’m not marrying you tonight,” Lethe declared, letting go of Roan’s wrists.

Roan snorted and took her shirt off. “Don’t make a scene, now. I thought we were good.”

Aletheia tried to grab her shirt from his hands, but he was quicker, throwing it behind him like nothing was. “We are, but not  _that_  good yet. We’re not getting married tonight, I said.”

“Stop this. You’re tiring my patience.” He sighed and tried to grab her belt, but this time she was quicker and jumped back. “Aletheia, don’t make me hurt you.”

“You promised.”

“Yes, I did, but not so that you could do this! Echo will find you a pretty dress and I’ll take care of ripping it tonight. When the night falls we’ll be celebrating and you’re going to behave.”

Theia shook her head. “Your mother just  _died_. You should be mourning her, not marrying me.”

“ _I_  agreed to get her killed.  _I_  wanted her dead. And tonight we will celebrate because I’m damn tired of all this shit.” Roan rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. He wasn’t in the mood to fight with her. He wasn’t in the moods for her moods and her tantrums and her not cooperating. He just wanted Aletheia to finally become his wife and take her all night, he wanted to feel sore the morning after and lay in bed with her until the day died.

“I don’t care if you wanted her dead. You should at least  _pretend_. Why are you so good at pretending with me but not with her?” Lethe had managed to find one of his shirts on the ground behind her and had put it on as quickly as she could.

She looked good in it, Roan found himself noticing. She had never worn his clothes and now that she accidently did, he wished for her to do that more often. He wanted her to smell like him and his clothes to smell like her, so that he could feel her with him wherever he was.

“Listen.” He approached her, but didn’t make a move to take a hold of her hands. “Now that she’s dead, your blood will be a threat for you since she can’t protect you anymore.”

“Oh yes, just because she did a great job while you were away.”

“Ontari wasn’t a threat back then,” Roan pointed out, taking a step closer while she stood still in her spot beside their bed. “But now she is. Everyone at home knows about your adoption and the color of your blood. They will take sides. And if Ontari makes a move against you because she feels you’re an obstacle between her and becoming  _Heda_ , we will have problems. Other  _natblida_  will come out of nowhere and we will lose whatever power we’d have gained.”

Lethe kept silent and Roan could almost see the gears working inside her head. For the first time in days he was glad to notice that he had her utmost attention.

“I know what she did to you, but she also protected you from this whole  _Heda_  thing.”

But she shook her head. “No, you don’t know what she did to me. You weren’t there, you just  _don’t_ know what it felt like. You can brag all you want about your ban, but it will never compare to what your mother did to me. And trust me, she wasn’t protecting me. You just,” she shook her head again and her arms went to hug her own waist, her gaze falling to the ground. “You just don’t know shit.”

“And then talk to me!” Roan’s exasperated voice ringed all around her as he grabbed her arms . “Weren’t you the one saying we don’t talk to each other anymore? Talk to me. You’re mine, always have, always will be. Anything about you is about me too.” His fingers crawled up her arms and grazed at the skin of her neck. It was bruised and he knew he was the cause of those bruises, but he couldn’t get himself to accept it. “I am here, you know that, right?” he whispered, his lips brushing her earlobe, her hair tickling the skin of his face.

Hesitant, her arms left her body and slowly, shyly hugged his waist. “But you weren’t  _there_. You promised me you’d protect me and you weren’t there.”

He could feel her slightly tremble in his arms and when he stepped back he saw goosebumps on her skin. Taking her hand, he guided her towards the bed and sat next to her. “Share your pain with me,” he proposed. “It’s never gonna go away otherwise.”

When she turned to look at him, he saw fear in her eyes. And pain, so much pain that a shiver went down his spine. Her already fair skin had turned paler and she was starting to look sick.

Maybe pushing her into the marriage that night wasn’t the best idea. In that moment, looking at her, it almost sounded like a crime.

“What do you want me to say? That she tortured me when I tried to go and look for you?” Her hand slipped away from his hold. “That I wasn’t raped just because Echo knows how to scare your men?”

“Did anyone else touch you?” Roan moved closer to her. He wanted to touch her, but she looked like she didn’t want to be touched. Maybe she never wanted to be touched after what had happened, but when his dick hurt he knew he couldn’t think straight just as he knew she’d do almost anything to please him.

Had he pushed her into something she wasn’t comfortable with?

Lethe shrugged her shoulders, her hands clutching at her belly from above his shirt. “Not directly.”

They both sat in silence for minutes. He wanted to know, but something kept stopping him from asking questions, from pushing her forward, from taking words out of her mouth. And Lethe wanted to speak, wanted to get all that pain out of her chest and out of her mind. But it still felt so close, like it was from yesterday, and it still burned everywhere on her skin.

“I had just found out I was with child, you know? A few weeks after you were sent away. Your mother had already locked me up in our bedroom,” she confessed, the words burning her tongue like acid. She jolted slightly when she felt his hands grabbing hers and holding tight. “She didn’t like the news, thought the kid would be a threat, I don’t even know to what.”

Roan’s left arm sneaked around her waist and in a second his face was hiding in the crook of her neck. Ever since he had come back this was the first time when she felt like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed. She went back at being the eighteen-year old girl she had been when she had first met him. She could almost hear the swords clinking in the air as they walked not far from his home. He had acted all tough and emotionless, while she was jumping inside her head. And when he had hidden his face in the crook of her neck just like he was doing now, she realized he was the one.

Even now, the tingling sensation radiating off from where they touched felt like a warm wave of life submerging her.

“You don’t have to go into detail if you don’t feel comfortable,” he reassured her, his hand caressing her hair.

“I wouldn’t have been the best of mothers - you know how Echo’s mom was, all duty and never fun… But didn’t I deserve a chance? What threat could’ve come from our baby?” Her breath trembled when she exhaled from her mouth, trying to calm down before breaking. “And yet I couldn’t hate her so much as to wanting her death.”

“She had to pay and now she did.”

“But she didn’t die because of me,” Lethe retorted, her fingers clutching to his. “She died because of power and for whatever you wanted. She didn’t pay. She just died for the wrong cause.”

Roan sighed in her hair, his arms extending to hug her waist briefly before he got up to kneel in front of her.

“I tried to tell you, but you just wouldn’t listen because of your whore and now that she’s dead… I can’t… I can’t go on, she died and the guilt is still on me because I couldn’t shove it up her ass. Couldn’t you wait?” She sniffed, her gaze fixating on his. And even if he had ruined her plans, even if he was cheating on her, she could still imagine the Roan he had once been and couldn’t but still love him somehow. And she hated it. She hated it because she knew she loved him more than she loved herself - he could hurt her all he wanted: her heart would still beat when he was with her. And she hated that she had no control over it. She hated the way she had softened up for him, the way she had fallen to his feet, the way she had already put him on a pedestal he didn’t deserve. “Couldn’t you just listen to me for once?”

“I didn’t know,” Roan shook his head, his hands going up and down her thighs in a calming manner.

She let out a laugh. “Of course you didn’t! You chose  _her_  when I tried to talk to you yesterday.”

Roan pushed her legs open and moved closer to her, his arms hugging her waist. “I’m sorry, I truly am. But I’m yours now, I promised, remember? ‘Yours, and no one else’s, not now, not ever. I belong forever with you’,” he quoted. “ _Ai hod yu in_ *, you know that, right?”

She nodded, but did she? “ _Ai hod yu in seintaim_ *,” she whispered back.

“Tell me. I won’t let you go through this alone, I won’t,” he insisted after a few seconds of silence.

His eyes were burning on her, burning to know, burning to share the pain. And maybe they burnt because he really loved her, because he still cared, because she was still the girl he had met six years ago and he the same prince.

“Sometimes they’d whip me,” she started, unsure, but his eyes felt like they were telling her to go on, to take her time to open up. It almost felt like he knew how hard it was on her. “The scars… I’ve covered them with the tattoos,” and she touched her back, her eyes still paralyzed on his, his hands still holding her right one, “I didn’t want people to see them.”

In that moment Roan wished he had asked her about those intricate black lines adorning her back. He wished he’d let his curiosity out instead of just assuming it was a way to look sexier for when he’d come back to her.

“Sometimes they’d beat me.” Her right hand brought his left one to her tummy and he immediately understood what she meant. “Sometimes they’d beat me until I coughed blood, sometimes until I passed out. Sometimes they wouldn’t even stop.”

Roan brushed a tear that was rolling down her cheek, his other hand still lingering on her abdomen.

“Sometimes they’d starve me. Or they’d lock me up in that dungeon cell.” She stopped and for a while she was still there, in that damp, dark cell, listening to the noise mice made all around her. “I had Echo to promise me not to intervene, I didn’t want her to end up in trouble because of me,” she added, her eyes closing. “But when my jailers wanted to take me, she was always there, stopping them, ready to even kill them.”

“I wish I was there too.”

Lethe shrugged her shoulders and smiled, tired. “And then,  _she_ forced me to take moontea. It was weird, though, for what I had heard, moontea makes you bleed, it doesn’t hurt. But it did hurt me. A lot. I wouldn’t stop bleeding and screaming for help, I-I… I screamed for you,” she confessed, letting the tears fall from her eyes. “It took me four days and four nights to lose it. I think it hurt so much because I felt your pain too.”

“This is all my fault,” he insisted, his hold on her hand tightening out of rage. “This happened because I wasn’t there to protect you, because I wasn’t there to stop that madness.”

“It’s not your fault,” Theia smiled again and for the first time in a long time her hand came up to his cheek and her thumb caressed his cheekbone. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He shook his head, not believing her words. It was his fault, he knew it and she did too. He got himself banished just for Azgeda to join the coalition and he left her behind, sure that she’d be safe with his mother. How many things would be different now had he taken her with him? He’d be father, probably he would’ve never cared of catching  _Wanheda_  and bringing her to Lexa. He’d only have Aletheia to care about and to protect. He wouldn’t care of becoming King and now he wouldn’t even be in that room, with a broken wife in front of him and an energetic whore somewhere in town. “Let me protect you, marry me tonight,” he proposed again. “Marry me tonight. Be my wife, be my  _Queen_.”

Deep down in her heart Aletheia feared she’d never be his queen. But that same heart wanted love, it wanted peace, maybe a kid that wasn’t doomed to die before he was even born. It wanted to go back home and home was where Roan was, whether she liked it or not, whether Anka was there or not, even if she hated her, even if she had yet to meet her.

“Be my Queen, Lethe,” he whispered again and Lethe nodded.

 

Aletheia had never been a fan of weddings, but now that her day had finally come, she couldn’t help but feel excited.

Someone had managed to find her a white dress in no time, probably borrowed from the Sky People. Even the veil had been found quite quickly. It was almost as though everything had already been settled for that night.

Maybe that was Roan’s way of making things right again. Maybe Echo was right, maybe she should give him another chance.

The thought of him planning their wedding made her smile and she thanked the veil for hiding that stupid smile from the few people that had been allowed to assist to the ceremony. And the thought of him walking behind her, holding that same veil that hid her face to the world, watching her, thinking about her and only her made tingles run down her spine.

Maybe all that pain had been a necessary stop in their walk to that tree, in their walk to their life together, bound by blood.

The few Azgeda warriors she could see without turning her head too much and even her sister had their faces painted in white, the color slightly shining under the moonlight. She tried to imagine how her dress looked under that light, whether it shined a little like a star too, like those same stars on which Roan and her had swore to love each other until the end of time.

Things had got in the way, but now she was sure they’d be able to overcome anything by just standing together against the world. And even if part of her didn’t want to get married yet, she was crying because she couldn’t imagine a better night, with the stars and the moon dotting the pitch black sky, enlightening her path to her new life.

When they finally reached the old oak Roan had chosen as an anchor to their marriage, it was as though the world had disappeared. It was just Aletheia and Roan in the middle of the night, standing one in front of the other like during their first few days. It was just them in their little safe nest and it felt like only the moonlight could reach them, bind them.

Her hands were trembling furiously as Roan held them, but he smiled encouragingly one last time before he let her hands go to push her veil back.

“In front of the Moon and the Earth, I take you as my wife. To protect you and fight besides you. From this night and all nights to come,” he announced, his voice ringing clearly in the clearing. Taking a dagger from the small altar someone had brought there, he opened a cut on her palm. Her heart felt like bursting while he bowed his head to kiss her wound and taste her blood.

“In front of the Moon and the Earth, I take you as my husband. To protect you and fight besides you. From this night and all nights to come,” she repeated and her voice trembled a little, but Roan smiled anyway.

She took the dagger he was handing her and cut his palm just like he had done, then bent down to kiss it and she was ready to swear his blood had never tasted sweeter.

 _You’re going to regret this_ , a stupid voice ringed in her head, but she pushed it aside. Now wasn’t the time for the past. Now was the time for the future and with the moon and the stars purifying them from above she hoped that the past would stay in the past.

With their lips red in blood, they kissed each other for what felt like an eternity, but it lasted only a few seconds.

They were almost there. Lethe could see the two of them standing on the threshold of tomorrow, hand in hand, swords on their backs, ready to be fighters once again.

And then, suddenly, someone had lighted up a fire and Roan was burning her veil and she followed suit, letting his coat fall into the flames, burning it, sanctioning their union with fire.

Aletheia barely noticed her sister kissing her cheeks and then doing the same with Roan. She was distracted by the sudden cold coming from the loss of the veil that had protected her shoulders and face. The short dress they had given her exposed her legs and the goosebumps there hurt like hell. Her bare feet on the wet grass were freezing and Roan must have noticed: he took her hand and guided her through the crowded streets of Polis, full of people cheering them and of people glaring, throwing bad luck spells at them.

They weren’t following them: they were headed to their rooms for their tradition wanted the newlywed couple to sign their vows in yet another way. Following Roan into the lift, Lethe felt dizzy. Everything had gone by too fast and her brain was having a hard time catching up. But his hand holding hers felt like an anchor, keeping her attached to this world.

She tried not to listen to the voices in her head, to think about what she had told him that afternoon, about the memories her confession had brought back.

Roan nudged her shoulder and she turned to look at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she answered and cleared her throat. She had drunk many times, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to drink the stuff that awaited her upstairs. “Just a little dizzy.”

He nodded and tightened his hold on her hand, their cuts touching almost painfully. “What I said earlier today,” he spoke, “I meant it, Lethe. Still do.”

“I know, I meant it too.”

Then, suddenly, the doors opened and two guards made way for them to exit.

“So,” Theia spoke up right before entering in their room. “What’s this dreadful drink everyone talks about? Do you know?”

Roan chuckled and leaned against the doors, his hands behind his back. “You’re worried about some  _dram_?” He looked amused and Lethe had missed that look on his face.

“ _Dram_? Are you kidding me?” Aletheia let out a relieved laughter. “My my, I thought it was something worse. At home people kept saying it was some moon shit that knocks you out.”

Roan joined in her laughter and bent to take his boots off. “Are you cold?” he asked, getting closer to her.

“A bit,” she admitted taking his hand.

Everything felt so surreal. It was as though Anka had never existed, as though the ban itself never existed. It felt like they had gone back in time at being young again and that nothing had happened. If only snow would fall outside, she would even feel at home, up in the mountains.

She followed him to the bed and sat down while he took a bottle of  _dram_  out of a trunk.

“Take a big gulp of it,” he ordered, handing her the bottle.

She did as she was told and then passed it to him. She stared as some of the burning liquor slipped out of the bottle and his mouth and rolled down into his beard, losing in it and his neck.

“I can’t believe I dreaded this moment more than anything else,” Theia laughed again, the drink still burning and scratching at her throat.

“You feared a drink?”

“What can I say?” and she played nervously with her hands.

“Want another shot?” he playfully proposed, passing her the bottle again.

She didn’t dare say no and drank again, closing her eyes as the liquid burned all the way down. Her already dizzy head slowly started to feel dizzier, to pound like a hammer. But it was good, in a way, it helped her forget. “You should drink too,” she smirked, finding somehow the strength to get up.  _Dram_  didn’t scare her, but the way it took all her strength partially did, even though she and Roan had drunk it together countless times.

“You’re even hotter when you’re drunk,” Roan’s slurry voice revealed as he was trying to take her dress off.

Lethe giggled and went for the bottle again, but Roan moved it from her, his other hand rummaging her body. In the end, after he let the bottle fall to the ground, where it went in pieces, he kept good on his promise and ripped her dress.

She didn’t know how, but a minute later she was laying on the bed and Roan was above her, both of them naked. His hands were grabbing at her thighs while he just stood still in between her legs.

“ _Without you I’m torn like a sail in a storm_ *,” he suddenly sang, his teeth grazing at the skin of her belly.

Aletheia laughed, her fingers running through his hair. “You’re so wasted,  _houmon_ *,” she giggled.

Somehow, even in his wasted state, he managed to come back to reality for a few seconds when that word made him look up at her face. He remembered her words from before, how she had almost been raped, and he didn’t want her to feel like that ever again. So he asked, looked for her permission, and made sure she was comfortable. “Do you want this, Lethe? We can do it tomorrow if you want,” he slurred.

At first, she thought he was kidding: he had never been one for caring too much about how someone might feel when he wanted to do something. He’d just go for it no matter what, and that had been something she had always loved about him. But now, hearing his words, her brows furrowed a little and her hands stopped on his neck.

He smelled like  _dram_ , but she was sure she smelled like it too.

“Why are you asking?” she wondered. His burning breath and sweaty skin were making her lose focus. “You’ve never hurt me that way…”

“But someone did.”

Lethe chuckled. It was almost hilarious that he was worried about something someone else had done, but not about the things he was doing to her. Or the things he was  _not_  doing to her. “And that someone is not here. There’s just you and me and I’ve been wanting you non-stop ever since we met.” And her eyes, for once, weren’t lying and he saw it, he almost felt it in the way her fingers started to caress again the skin of his shoulders.

“I’ve been wanting you ever since I met you, too,” he chuckled, his hands almost tickling her waist.

And then they were giggling like kids and somehow he still managed to kiss her neck, his hands opening her legs more for her to hug his waist. Then, suddenly, he was serious again.

“Lethe,” he groaned, his lips just millimeters from her left nipple. “I’m going to fuck you so hard we’ll both be sore tomorrow,” he warned her, one of his hands slipping between them to graze lightly at her clit.

Aletheia whimpered, her lips parting a little. “Then fuck me,” she groaned, her eyes almost closed, and she bit her lower lip just like he loved, taking a hold of his hair and forcing him to kiss her.

She was burning inside with anticipation. Where their skins touched goosebumps formed on her body, her heart beating like crazy.

Roan giggled again, his eyes watering a little like every time he drank  _dram_. “I love it when you’re this horny,” he confessed, pushing harder against her without penetrating her, his erection almost hurting him against her burning core. But then he started to slide lower, his mouth leaving hers to kiss her breast and her body until his hands took a hold of her hips. “We’re missing on the banquet,” he noticed and giggled again, and this time she joined him, knowing what he was going to do, her hips lifting on their own accord.

Roan raised his gaze and kept it locked with hers. He never broke eye contact as he got closer. He was moving terribly slowly and Theia was going crazy.

“Fuck, Roan, just move already!” she growled, her hands snapping towards him, her fingers grabbing his hair once more.

He giggled again and cursed himself for breaking the bottle of  _dram_. He wanted to drink more and he wanted to make her drink, too, to stare as the liquor trickled down the skin of her neck and onto her breasts. And with that thought on his mind, he lunged forward and kissed her clit.

Lethe moaned something and he moved one of his hands to caress her. Kissing her arousal, he found himself moaning too, wanting to take her right then and there. But he was trying to keep a little clear headed because he knew she deserved much better than he was able to give her.

He teased her lips for a while, his lips still lingering on her clit. He loved to watch her panting, to watch her massaging her breasts and wiggling her hips under him. With a smile he penetrated her with a finger and soon added a second when she pleaded him, almost whining.

“You drive me insane,” he confessed, his lips moving to kiss her inner thigh.

Lethe managed to let out a laugh, her voice shaking a little. “Do I?” and she pushed herself up on her elbows.

“You can’t even imagine how much,” and he was back kissing her, his fingers curling inside her while he fingered her.

She moaned in the kiss and grabbed his hair once more, one of her legs riding up his side, his other hand grazing the skin of his back with her fingers. He loved the way she was pushing against his hand, the way she just couldn’t keep silent.

He himself was starting to pant, his forehead sweaty while it touched hers. He could feel her spasm against his fingers, his lungs burned inside his chest.

“I love the sounds you make,” he told her, his lips a breath away from hers.

“And I love your fingers inside me,” she gasped when he curled his fingers more. “But I love your cock more,” and she pushed up to meet his lips so fast that their mouth crashed and her teeth bit at his lower lip. The taste of his blood in her mouth pushed her over the edge and she couldn’t hold back her loud moan.

When his fingers left her a shiver went up her body starting at her feet and she shivered under Roan’s gaze. His slick hand caressed her side until he reached her breast and stopped there. He didn’t tease her and she wasn’t liking it.

“I want to suck you,” she confessed, her breath short, her chest furiously rising and falling. “But I want you inside me more.”

Roan loved how  _dram_  erased her shyness when it came to sex. He loved when she went all dirty, when she showed him just how badly she wanted him. And he loved her lips around his shaft, so he turned onto his back, a smirk on his lips. “Aren’t you starving?” he teased her, his hand grabbing her and guiding it until she was touching his aching erection.

A malicious spark burned in her eyes, but she whined nonetheless. They stared at each other for a minute or so and Lethe understood he was not going to give up. She had given him an idea, whether she liked it or not in that particular moment, and now she had to go with it.

“I am,” she whispered against the skin of his shoulder. “But just say it. Say that you want me to suck you dry,” she giggled.

“I want you to suck me until it hurts,” he nodded, his hand pushing hers harder against his dick.

Lethe giggled, her hand wrapping around him and squeezing lightly. “It’s okay to beg, you know?” She stood up in a sitting position and looked down at him.

“I won’t, you know that.”

“A woman never loses hope,” she laughed and bent down to kiss his chest. She brushed her lips against one of his already hard nipples before raising her gaze to look at him. “Please, daddy?” and she fluttered her eyelashes.

Roan sighed, but when her hand tightened around him he let out a moan. He grabbed her face and forced her to move closer to kiss her. “Please, baby girl, suck me off,” he faked a begging tone.

“Was it that hard?” she laughed and her breasts brushed against his chest.

Kissing her way down to his erection, she never lost eye contact just like he had done, for she, too, loved to watch pleasure take over his features. She loved to tease him for she knew he’d punish her and she would never consciously say ‘no’ to his punishments.

Her fingers traced his length, her nails brushing a little at its base before she suddenly kissed its tip. His hips jerked upwards, but he didn’t take her by surprise. She giggled and bent lower, covering him in kisses just to hear him hiss because he wasn’t having it his way.

“Shouldn’t you be begging?” she whispered against him before licking him starting at the base. “Hm, daddy?” and she smiled against him. When he didn’t answer, she sucked at the skin of his testicles and he gasped.

“Please, Lethe,” and this time he begged her for real, for the first time in six years. It felt weird for he was a prince and one hard at begging, but she loved him anyway.

Lethe kissed his tip again, fire igniting again in her core, and while she took him in her mouth she moaned. He felt bigger than she had remembered and for a second, just for one, she wondered whether Anka sucked him as good as she did, but when he shamelessly moaned her name that thought left her mind.

When he pushed her head lower onto him, she gagged for a second before she managed to free herself from his grip.

“No way,  _daddy_ ,” and she smirked, emphasizing that word.

She pumped him a few times, her hand slick in her spit and his pre-cum, when his moans and entranced expression pushed her to change her mind. Before he knew, she had straddled him and had sunk down on him.

Roan’s eyes fluttered wide open while her head fell back, lips parted, skin flushed.

He spanked her butt and she jolted, her hips moving forward, making both of them moan. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You,” Lethe smiled before running her nails down his chest, leaving red lines behind.

Roan grunted, tightened his grip on her hips until his own fingers hurt and rolled them over.

“You’re a bad girl,” he warned, his head already pounding because of the  _dram_.

Lethe smirked. “But you love it when I do this,” she teased, pushing herself up to peck his lips. “Just as you love it when I call you ‘daddy’. You might not be able to beg, Roan, but you sure as hell can’t lie to me about this.”

He stared at her while slowly pulling out before slamming himself back in with force. “The best part is,” he whispered, bending lower until his lips were next to her ear, while he pushed out again until only his tip was inside her, “when I get to punish my girl,” and with a vigorous thrust he was back inside her and she was moaning, her hands grabbing at the back of his neck, her hips thrusting upwards to meet his own hips.

And just like that, biting her shoulder, he put up a pace Lethe struggled to keep up to. He loved the way she panted, the way she moaned, the way the walls clenched around him, finishing her lips’ work.

It didn’t take him long to roll over the edge and when he came, his grip on her thighs tightened painfully. He panted and groaned in the crook of her neck.

“Don’t stop,” she begged him and even though she needed a punishment, he couldn’t bring himself to act deaf before her words.

He grabbed her left leg and raised it until it rested on his shoulder. He went back at fucking her, turning a little to his right to angle himself better. When he looked down and his sight came back to focus he saw her hands squeezing her breasts painfully. His name kept escaping her lips while her breath became shorter and shorter, her walls spasming deliciously around him.

And then, when the tip of his still throbbing dick hit her just in the right spot, she came and she screamed like never before.

When he had taken her down from her high, he laid next to her, his right arm hugging her waist. It took her a long time for her breath to get somewhat even, but when she turned to look at him, she laughed.

“What a strong daddy,” she giggled, getting closer to him to kiss his lips. “Just don’t hurt me,” she begged, her eyes closed and their foreheads touching.

“I won’t,” he promised, and even though everything around her screamed for her not to, she believed him.

 

 

_Beja: please_

_Haiplana: Queen_

_Ai hod yu in: I love you_

_Ai hod yu in seintaim: I love you too_

_Houmon: husband/wife_

‘ _Without you I’m torn like a sail in a storm’_   is from _‘[Sad Song’ by We The Kings](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBZsXcc_tC-o&t=MzczYTJiOTU0ZDBlNzRhMjYzY2VkYjUzYWFhZDFhMjlmYWMyOThiMixFNmdjRHlVWA%3D%3D&b=t%3AO7t2ijLvHnCFHoZny7sFBg&p=http%3A%2F%2Fangelaiswriting.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F163295414359%2Fnot-his-queen-part-4-of-roan-x-reader-nsfw&m=1)_


	5. Part Five

A couple of weeks had passed and Aletheia couldn’t say she didn’t like her new married life. Sure, Roan was sometimes busy with him being King and all, but all in all, she was enjoying it. He waited for her to wake up before he left their bed, he cuddled her after sex, he even unbraided her hair when she was particularly lucky.

And when he felt particularly good, they even had sweet sex. He drove her crazy before making her cum, but at least she didn’t wake up the morning after sore like hell, her body covered in bruises and love bites for everybody to see.

He had even stopped sneaking out at night to go to that damn whore and, once more, Lethe had deluded herself into thinking he had finally put a stop to that story, that now she was the only woman in his life.

She had started to hope again, to dream of a better future and to dream of home.

With Nia dead, she even went back to training and she was pleased to notice that she hadn’t forgotten a thing in that year she had spent captive in Azgeda. She still had things to learn and her aim faltered sometimes, but she had always been quick at learning and she was sure she’d be able to fix her little problems in no time.

Echo had taken the duty of teaching her and those hours they spent together tasted like home, like childhood. They had always used to train together as kids and to fight until the night fell and they couldn’t almost see their own faces anymore. And that’s what they still did now.

Sometimes Roan joined them and when he did, Echo always left after a while and Roan always found a way to sneak in her pants and to make her forget about her duties. He always made sure to make her lose her focus on the training and to push it towards what was to come. Lethe didn’t believe in miracles, they belonged to fairy tales and she didn’t believe in fairy tales anymore. But sometimes, when she thought about how nobody had walked up on them having sex yet, she thought that maybe little miracles happen, at times.

And with each passing day, Anka’s name started to fade in her memory and soon - sooner than it was actually good - she started to think that that woman was just a bad dream she had one night.

“Aletheia,” Roan’s voice brought her to the present and her eyes snapped into his direction. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked and only in that moment, she realized he was holding the reins of her horse.

“What are you doing with Atlas?” Her brows furrowed as she tried to take the reins from her husband’s hands.

“ _Sen in_ *,” he sighed, taking a hold of her hand to stop her. “I need you to go with the ambassadors for  _Skaikru_ , to take them to wherever they live. Keep an eye on them while they gather the medicaments and Clarke’s mother.”

Aletheia stared at him for a while and when she managed to answer, her ‘no’ sounded more like a question. “You have guards for this, why send me? I don’t even like these people, Roan. I might just lose my shit and do some damage to this stupid coalition. Send Echo, she’s better than me at dealing with people.”

Roan’s eyebrows rose and he tried not to laugh. “You might be right about the fact that you don’t like them, but I’m not sure how better Echo is than you.” He pushed her closer to the horse and made her turn so that the Sky People waiting for her wouldn’t be able to catch up what they were saying. “You’re the only person I trust,  _niron_ *,” he insisted. “Just go and keep an eye out, and when you come back you tell me everything. I have Lexa to keep calm and Ontari to stop from doing damage. Just go and behave, you will be back with them in no time.”

Lethe wanted to answer back, but she couldn’t find it in herself. The night they got married she had made herself a promise: not to put up a fight with him, to just take him as he was without pushing him beyond his limits for she didn’t want to get hurt again.

“We will stay in bed all day when you’re back,” he promised, his fingers caressing the side of her neck, brushing lightly at one of her love bites. “Just go and be a good girl.”

She snorted and hopped on the horse. “If this is one of your tricks, you’d better get ready ‘cause I’m in no mood to babysit these space monkeys,” she warned him.

Roan chuckled and gripped her ankle for a second before letting her go. “No trick, I promise.”

And even in that moment, she believed him. She didn’t want to think that he was hiding something, that somehow he still had sex with someone else. They were married now, how could he even have eyes for other women? She tried hard to convince herself and even though she didn’t fully manage to do so, she made herself believe in the lies she told herself.

The ride to the caves  _Skaikru_  called ‘home’ - or to whatever place they lived in - started off quiet. The boy with curly hair was talking to the other man, someone who could have been her father and was chuckling.

_Sickening_ , she shook her head. She couldn’t find in herself the strength or the motivation to like those people. She should have been grateful since it was thanks to them that Roan was back, but with these Sky People in the coalition, things could just turn into shit in a matter of seconds. Not many people liked them back in Polis, she was sure of this since her sister had ears everywhere, and she was scared by the possibility of some kind of war.

“So,” the man spoke up, turning to look at her on her horse. She was starting to feel uncomfortable, being the only one riding, but she was trying to brush that feeling off her shoulders. “You will be Queen soon if I’m not mistaken. Shouldn’t you be surrounded by guards?”

Lethe snorted - as if she wasn’t able to care for herself! But she didn’t reply. She wasn’t in the mood and she was still pissed at having to babysit grown up kids. If they had managed to land on Earth after leaving space and to survive, there was no need for them to need her to escort them home.

But the two men and Clarke kept staring at her and she sighed. “No, I don’t need guards. And yes, I will be Queen, but this doesn’t mean I need a babysitter.”

No one spoke after those words and the four of them enjoyed the calm of the woods, the trees shielding the sunlight above their heads.

Lethe had started to relax and to slip into an almost trance. It was just something that always happened to her ever since she was a kid: riding her horse, surrounded by peace… it just emptied her mind from all thoughts, calming her. She let the horse’s movements lull her until she almost fell asleep in the saddle.

But then Clarke had to ruin everything. “Why did you want to come with us? It doesn’t seem like you like us.”

Lethe shrugged her shoulders and fixed her posture. “Well, I’m glad I don’t have to fake,” she smirked. “And I didn’t want to come. Roan just made me go with you.”

The younger man, probably Bellamy but she didn’t spend much time trying to learn their names, frowned. “Well, that’s not what Roan told us,” he confessed, stopping in his tracks.

“What do you mean?” Aletheia was starting to feel sick in her stomach again. She made Atlas come to a stop and fought the urge to jump down the horse.

Bellamy shrugged his shoulders just like she had. “He said you were going to accompany us to Arkadia.”

“To  _what_?”

“The place we live in,” the older man specified. “He said you wanted to come along to protect us.”

“Are you lying?” Lethe could feel her heart start to sink again. Had she agreed to do that? She didn’t remember saying ‘yes’ to such a stupid idea. Had Roan lied? Was he still lying to her?

Clarke shook her head. “I was kind of surprised since it’s obvious we make you sick, so we were just wondering.”

“He told you I wanted to come?” She was speechless. How could he lie? To what benefit?

But then something in her mind clicked. He hadn’t sneaked out on her, but he had just waited for the right moment.

She barely heard the three Sky People scream her name behind her while Atlas flew through the forest, the animal’s hooves barely touching the ground. Her head was pounding and she felt like vomiting.

Theia just prayed for it to just be a stupid thought. She had won his heart back, he was hers now and she was his. They had sworn loyalty and love to each other until the end of time. This  _had_  to be her mind playing tricks on her.

The horse hadn’t stopped yet when she literally jumped off its running form, landing on the concrete street. It hadn’t been a particularly happy landing and a pebble had opened a little hole in the palm of her right hand, but she didn’t pay much attention to it.

She entered the tower like a fury and pushed her way to the lift.

The way up seemed endless. She tried not to think, to convince herself she was wrong, that he was alone, that that fucking Anka was dead somewhere, but the sickness in her stomach wouldn’t leave and it was spreading to her whole body. Her lungs hurt and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Tears were like stings in her eyes and her throat felt drier than a desert while she couldn’t but swallow air.

When the doors to her floor finally opened, she ran past the guards and down the familiar corridor that led to her bedroom - to  _their_  bedroom. If he was with  _her_ , Lethe hoped that he hadn’t brought a whore in their bed.

But when Roan’s guards tried to stop her and her brain finally managed to function again, she picked up noises that almost made her throw up.

Lethe closed her eyes for a moment, trying to get in control of her body, but to no avail. She was just  _too_  damn tired. She thought it had stopped, that Roan had managed to keep his stupid prick inside his dirty pants. How could she be such a fool? How could she believe him?

When she opened her eyes again, one of the guards had almost managed to grab her arm. But Aletheia could be all but stupid: in a second, the two short swords she had on her back were in her hands and she was ready for some blood.

She was tired of cheating and of stupid guards trying to stop her, to hurt her, to push her behind when she had all the right in the world to be on the front line.

She kicked one of the two men in the stomach before suddenly turning around and piercing the other guard’s throat until the point of the sword clanged against the wall behind him. Lethe wasn’t fast enough: when a hand grabbed her hair from behind and yanked her back, she almost threw up right then and there. Her head smashed against the wall on the other side of the door and she had to shake it a few times before her sight went back to normal.

“The King said no one enters,” the man growled, checking on his friend.

“I am his damn wife,” Aletheia retorted, hissing a little went she took a step forward and her head ached. “I will be your  _Queen_. You can’t keep me out of my room.”

The man didn’t waste time to answer her: he lunged forward and this time Lethe was lucky enough to dodge his fists and to slide to the side. She kicked him behind his left knee and in a blink of an eye, he was kneeling next to her. This time he didn’t have the time to react: the pommel of Lethe’s sword hit hard on his head before the blade fell hard on his neck, cutting it halfway through. Blood was gushing out of the cut and the girl’s face turned red before she could even move away.

Gurgling sounds were slipping out of the guard’s lips and Aletheia didn’t know whether those sounds were real or just a figment of her imagination. She didn’t stop to check: she rose her sword once more and before she could tell it was over, the man’s head fell to the ground and rolled a few inches away from the body before it collapsed in front of her.

A sob escaped her lips for the sounds sneaking out from under the door made her stomach turn in her body.

Did she deserve this? And if she did, what had she done to deserve it?

She picked the head up by its hair and kicked the door open.

“Roan!” she sang and made the head roll inside. Were she in another situation, she’d laugh at her gesture.

She knew she didn’t have to look, but she also wanted to print that image inside her head to stop herself from trusting him ever again.

A brunette girl was riding him, her back and arms covered in black tattoos. The blood in her veins started to boil at the thought that he had never allowed her to ride him like that whore was doing now.

What did she have? Bigger boobs? Longer hair? Was it really because of  _that_  that Roan had felt the need to fuck someone else?

The two had stopped what they were doing, but Lethe could still hear their elaborated breaths.

Roan’s hands were still on the girl’s hips and Aletheia thought she was finally standing in presence of that damn whore. Anka’s hands were on his chest, his dick still inside her.

Lethe was ready to kill. Really, she was, and she would have if she didn’t bend in half to vomit her breakfast. Her swords fell to the ground with a clanging sound when Roan suddenly pushed the girl off of him.

She vaguely heard him shuffling, but she was too busy trying to stand on her legs while she straightened her back. When she opened her eyes again, Roan was right in front of her, trying to grab her hands, but she had enough of his shit. She threatened him with one of her swords not to get closer, but he wouldn’t listen and he inevitably got cut. For the first time since they had met, Lethe’s heart was too dead to care.

When Anka burst out laughing and Lethe feared she was going to lose it, she let her sword fall, turned around abruptly and sprinted in the direction from which she had come.

She still felt like vomiting, and she still felt like dying. And she still felt like killing her lying husband and his damn bitch, but as of now, her head hurt too much to even think.

Aletheia almost tripped while getting into the elevator, but she somehow managed to keep her balance. Anka’s laugh kept ringing in her ears, fueling her anger.

This time she reached the main floor in no time, almost as though the elevator knew she was in a hurry and that Roan might have taken the stairs to reach her. And so she didn’t stop when she got out of the building. She ran on trembling legs, her knees threatening to give out, and with her stomach up in her throat she made her way towards the doors of the city and the direction the Sky People had taken.

Where the heck was she going? What would she do?

She felt her own tears threatening to fall from her eyes and to blind her, but she didn’t want to cry for him, not anymore. He had promised and she had caught him with his dick up her cunt and she was not going to forgive him, she was not going to cry for her broken heart and for him.

Then, suddenly, from a far, someone was running towards her and this time Aletheia let the tears stream for she knew it wasn’t him. She didn’t care that Clarke was suddenly clutching her, that she had hated that girl for coming from space.

“Aletheia?” Clarke was calling her but her knees were finally giving out, content to finally have someone to lean on to. As soon as Lethe’s forehead made contact with Clarke’s shoulder, her knees bent and she fell to the ground, eyes rolled back in her head, color gone from her face.

Suddenly, everything had gone black.

It was almost like swimming, like that time when Aletheia and Echo had gone skinny dipping near the southern Azgeda border. It was a year before meeting Roan and they had left home to have some sister time. The lake’s water looked dark even in the sunlight and the two girls hadn’t hesitated and had jumped.

Waking up that day felt almost like coming back to the surface of that lake. The water had felt heavy all around her, almost as though it was more than just water. Her lungs felt the freedom before her eyes had: she took a big gulp of air as she had done those many years ago and then her eyes opened wide on their own accord.

The first thing she felt was the pain in her lungs, slowly spreading to her whole body and to her hammering head. Then, the sense of touch came back and the back of her hands felt furs underneath them.

She could smell the rain and slowly its tapping sound tickled her eardrums. It felt good, she felt at home, but it wasn’t Roan’s home or Nia’s. It was the home she had in that village up in the mountains, where she grew up alongside with Echo after being adopted when she was nine years old. It was the same smell of rain, of earth coming back to life, of dust getting soaked and of wet skin. She could almost feel it on the tip of her tongue, bringing her back in time and space, making her ache for the things she had left behind for a love that was just an illusion.

It also smelled like her first home, on that island near the lighthouse. She still remembered the day she had left it after her parents had been killed: it was raining buckets and she could smell the woods avidly drinking every drop while she reached the mainland.

And then, suddenly, her sight went back to focus and she found herself staring at a well-known ceiling. She jolted up in a sitting position, nausea filling her.

She felt dirty: she could almost feel Roan and Anka’s arousal on her skin and on her clothes and she felt the impulse to vomit.

“Don’t move,” but her ears couldn’t pick up Clarke’s words, too busy replaying her husband and his whore’s moans and grunts. She could almost hear the sound of skin slapping against skin as she stood up, the room spinning around her like a top.

Lethe felt like crying again, like tearing her own skin off her body.

“Calm down, Aletheia!” Clarke insisted, grabbing her by her shoulders and trying to make her sit on the bed again.

But Lethe was weeping and weakly fighting against her. “Not there,” she managed to beg. “Not on that bed.”

Clarke had somehow managed to drag her to sit on a chair because she didn’t remember walking. Kneeling in front of her, her hands clutching at her own, the Sky girl was trying to calm her down, to make her reason.

“What happened?” Aletheia’s head was spinning like the room she was in. She could only remember that scene and herself running away and out of the building.

“You fainted,” Clarke explained. “You’ve been knocked out for a few hours, but you should be okay, even if a little undernourished. We’ve run tests-”

“Tests? What kind of tests?” Theia was starting to stress out like she always did and she yanked her hands away from the girl’s.

Clarke smiled. “To see if you’re sick or something. We didn’t know you were a  _natblida_.”

“You can’t tell anyone, Spacegirl.” The last thing she needed was for more people to know about her blood, that same blood she had spent a lifetime hiding.

“That’s not what concerns us,” the girl smiled again, a toothy smile that creeped Lethe out. “You’re with child.”

For a second or two the world stopped, the rain paralyzed mid-air. Even her heart skipped a beat before those three words hit her like her jailors had a year before. Lethe barely had the time to turn her head to the right to let her insisting nausea out. If she had a soul, Aletheia was now sure she had puked it out.

“I’m sorry, what?” she questioned once she was sure her stomach wouldn’t give up on her again like that, tears streaming down her sweaty cheeks. “Why does life hate me so much?” she mumbled, a sob already forming in the back of her hoarse throat.

Clarke frowned. “What? I told you you’re pregnant, not that you’re dying…”

Lethe’s expression turned mad. “The second option would’ve sounded a lot better to me.”

“What is Roan doing to you?” the girl demanded, but the sounds of commotion coming from outside made both girls’ heads turn.

Before she knew it, Clarke had passed Lethe a dagger and had left to go see what was happening. But Aletheia could imagine it: Roan was throwing a tantrum because he had ‘every right to see my damn wife’.

She patiently waited, a hand resting on her tummy from above her shirt. The weapon in her other hand, an idea was slowly forming in her head, an idea she knew she was not going to regret even if she should.

And then, suddenly, the doors of the bedroom were closed again and Roan was standing right in front of her at the other side of the room.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, getting closer. He looked a little sick, but Lethe knew it was just a play to win her back for she wasn’t able to say ‘no’ to him.

“Don’t get near me,” she warned him, still sitting, the dagger pointing at him. He didn’t stop though, even though he knew how good she was at throwing knives, he didn’t stop. “Was this your idea of cuddling in bed after I got back to my senses? Me sleeping over her cum?”

“Lethe…” Roan sighed and held his hands high, showing her his palms. “I gave you all you wanted. We’re married now, we’re happy. I’m yours. What more do you want?”

How could he not understand it?

How could he not  _see_  it?

Was he even the same Roan she had fallen in love with?

“All you gave me was a fucking  _lie_!” she yelled. “And if that’s all you have to offer then I don’t want it. You can give it to her!” Aletheia was doing her best at holding back her tears, but some slipped down her cheeks anyway.

Roan took a step forward and tried to grab her wrist.

“No!” she screamed, her grip on the dagger becoming stronger. “You either understand this or you leave.”

“Look, I am the King,” he pointed out, anger flashing in his eyes. “And I’ll do as I please. I love you,  _niron_ , I truly do, but I won’t leave Anka. She was there during my banishment and you weren’t.”

Was he joking? Was he really that dumb? “I don’t know if you listened to me, but I was being  _tortured_! Sorry I couldn’t escape to tend to your fucking dick!”

She didn’t care whether people heard them fighting. She was done,  _so_  done with his shit and with everybody’s shit. Even with her own shit. She just wanted it to stop, but everyone felt like keeping that fucking show running.

“What fucking more do you want from me then?” he yelled and his voice ringed so angry that she flinched.

But this time, she was not going to bow down before him, she was not going to wipe the ground on which he walked. “Nothing,” she replied, dagger still between them.

They stared at each other for endless minutes. She was sure he was not going to ask her what had happened. Just like he was not going to give her a valid explanation for his behavior. He was just getting away with it because he was the damn King and all that shit. And she just wanted him to eat all that shit.

“You’re not even going to ask why I fainted?” She cocked her head to the side, lowering the dagger a little. She stared into his eyes and she saw nothing. It was like all he had felt for her once was now gone, swallowed up by that whore’s mouth. “You’re not even interested in knowing that I’m expecting your child?”

Roan’s lips parted in surprise and his hands fell to his sides. For the briefest of moments his eyes sparked up and she saw the Roan she had fallen in love with one last time.

“A kid?  _My_  kid?” he stuttered, trying to get closer again.

But she wouldn’t let him nearer. “Last time I checked I didn’t have someone else’s dick up my vagina,” she pointed out, a psychotic smile on her face. “I’m not like you.”

But it was as though he hadn’t heard her words. “We’re having a kid?” His voice trembled in joy and Lethe could see it in his eyes, in the way his back had straightened.

“Are you happy?”

Roan frowned. “Of course I am!” And to prove his words, he kneeled in front of her, grabbed her gently by her hips and kissed her tummy from above the shirt.

“Well, this is good,” she smiled, lifting the hem of her shirt and caressing her belly, her skin almost as fair as her hair. “Because I’m gonna take it away from you.”

And with those words she stood, Roan still paralyzed in his kneeling position. Lethe smiled at him again, one last time, and this once she was happy because it felt like freeing herself from him for good.

Before thinking twice, she had the dagger in the abdomen and Roan was screaming for help while she fell on the ground, her smile still on her lips.

“Crazy bitch,” he groaned, his hands around the dagger.

He didn’t stand up not even when Clarke and Lexa entered the room and hurried him to move, to give them space. He just grabbed Clarke’s wrist and squeezed it tight. “Can you save them?” He tried to hide the worried note of his voice, but couldn’t.

It was all his fault and he should’ve seen it coming.

“I will do my best,” Clarke answered, but ‘her best’ wasn’t enough for Roan. It  _couldn’t_  be enough for Roan.

“Please,” he begged, insisting, praying he’d get a chance to love her like she deserved.

   
 

_Sein in: listen_

_Niron: love, loved one_


	6. Part Six

Lethe slowly woke up from a dreamless slumber and this time she didn’t have the gentle welcoming sound of the rain. She woke up to pain in her whole body just to find out she hadn’t died. The kid probably had, and in that moment it didn’t even matter, but she was still there, still with _him_ , and she hated it.

She knew she couldn’t stand it anymore, not even for a day or for an hour. Her plan hadn’t exactly gone the way she had wanted it to, but at least Roan was in pain now, she hoped. He should have seen it coming and she hoped he was blaming himself for the loss of his child. He had a whore he could impregnate anyways, so maybe the pain wasn’t even there.

She had failed, she thought, staring at the ceiling of a room she didn’t recognize. At least this time she wasn’t in that damn bed. He could have it until the day he died if he wanted, she didn’t care. He could share it with that Anka woman if he wanted to, it wasn’t her business anymore. She had given up on him when she had vomited after seeing them together.

In that moment Anka didn’t even matter that much. Roan was the one she wanted to stab. That woman had been there for him and Lethe hadn’t, sure, but _he_ was the one at fault now. She wanted him to suffer for his cheating behavior. She wanted him to die inside for what he had done to her and for what he had pushed her to do.

She tried to turn on her side, but the wound on her belly hurt too much when she tried to move and she gave up on that idea.

When she turned her head to the side, though, towards the source of light, she saw Roan asleep in an old armchair and for a moment or two she found herself on the point of surrendering to him once and for all.

 _No_ , she told herself, swallowing hard, the pain still stinging like needles everywhere in her body. No, she had to be strong. She had to punish him like he deserved. And yet, it was her fault too. She had committed the mistake of loving him too much, even more than her own life. She had committed the mistake of adoring him like a god, of always bowing down. And, lastly, she had committed the mistake of believing that a marriage would let her win his heart back.

It didn’t matter that he was there with her now - and her heart ached at that thought. He had pushed her to that point.

 _He can weep all he wants_ , she kept repeating. She was not going to take him back.

She pushed herself up on her elbows and moved back a little, until the pillows were behind her back and she found herself in an almost sitting position. It hurt like hell, but that was good, in a way. It told her she had partially succeeded in her plan and that was what mattered at the moment.

Lethe had almost come to the resolution of waking him up when his feet moved a little and Roan yawned. She waited a few more seconds before speaking up. “Why do you still keep pretending?”

He frowned. “You’re awake.”

“Never been much of a genius, have you?” she smirked and shook her head. “I want you out of here.”

But Roan didn’t listen to her. He just got up from the armchair and reached the bed before sitting down next to her. His hand tried to get a hold of hers, but she moved it away. And when he tried to rest that same hand on her thigh, she moved so abruptly that she hissed in pain. But of something she was sure: she didn’t want him to touch her after what he had done.

“Come on, Lethe, don’t do this,” he snorted, raising his eyes towards the ceiling.

“You don’t have the right to call me that anymore, your Highness,” she scolded him and slowly moved a few inches away from him, but her whole body hurt too much at that effort and she gave up again.

Roan sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” she shook her head, betrayal stinging more than the pain radiating off her wound. “You’re sorry just because I caught you fucking her, not because you were fucking her in the first place. So, no, you’re not sorry.”

She just wanted him out of that room. Why didn’t he understand that?

Roan kept silent for a while and Lethe started to drift into slumber once more.

“The kid,” her husband cleared his voice, still not facing her. “Couldn’t make it.”

“Good,” she nodded, her eyes closed, her heart in pieces.

Maybe, after all, Nia had been right: she was not going to be a mother, not now, not ever. She just wasn’t allowed to, she didn’t have the right. She wasn’t cut for it.

“What got into you?” And finally his hands were gripping at her shoulders, she noticed with some sort of relief, and Roan was struggling against himself, trying not to shake her to not cause more pain.

Lethe smiled, eyes still closed, and what she would call a wave of peace washed over her. “It was part of you,” she spoke and drew in a long breath. “And when I fully recover, I don’t want anything from you anymore.” Her eyes opened to Roan’s frown and she smiled. “What? You thought I’d stay after what you’ve done to me? After the way you’ve treated me? How many men would treat a wife the way you’ve treated me?” She shook her head and a bitter laugh escaped her lips. “I might not be perfect, I agree, but I’ve never thought so little of you, I’ve never had another man when I could have. And in case you didn’t know, this is what love is, what _loyalty_ is. The question now is: do _you_ know what loyalty is? Or were you just taking pleasure from killing me?”

“I don’t love her,” he simply stated, his hands still on her shoulder, but now they weren’t gripping at her bones that hard.

“It doesn’t matter whether you do or not. Or, well, it does to _her_ , unless she was just fucking you for the sake of fucking someone.” Her hands moved to his and pushed them away from her body. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. Whatever we had, whatever lived between the two of us, it’s gone now, it’s dead. And now, if you don’t mind, _haihefa_ *, I’d like you to leave.”

 

Those had been her last words to him before, a week later, she disappeared into thin air. That morning he had finally found the courage to face her again, to make her love him again, but when he had entered Lexa’s bedroom, his wife wasn’t there anymore. It had just been dawn and no one in the tower had known of her disappearance. Even the guards in the city hadn’t seen her. Roan remembered finding that fact weird, since she had such a fair and light appearance compared to everybody else.

He had been looking for her ever since. At first because he needed a Queen, because _Azgeda_ needed it. But then, slowly, one mistake after another, a tsunami of false steps washed over him and he realized he was now alone: his wife had left him because of what he had done to her and his kid had died because his wife had been too hurt to stand the idea of carrying his heir in her womb. And when that thought hit him like a thousand stab wounds, he felt like suddenly he had nothing left.

Sometimes, when the desperation hit him hard and all he was left with was memories from a fading past, he could swear he saw her walking the streets of Polis, her fair hair moving in the light breeze of the dying day. Her ‘ _Ai hod you in_ *’ still haunted him at night, when he found himself sleeping in an armchair for he couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in the same bed as Anka. And when he had pushed that whore away, when he had threatened to kill her had she come to him again, Lethe’s voice still haunted him. There were times when he swore he could feel her light touch on his skin, her fingers grazing lightly at his arms and back the same way she had done the first time he had taken her.

And every time his men came back with no news, he could feel her hard gaze on him, judging him, blaming him, _hating_ him.

And when Echo came back, that evening, he found himself hoping for something good, for something he could hold on to.

“Did you find her?”

Echo shook her head no, a heavy sigh escaping her lips and mixing with the thick air between them. “Not even a trace.”

Roan sighed in turn, his head falling backwards and hitting the hardwood of the high chair he was sitting in. “I didn’t remember her to be this good at hiding.”

His wife’s sister coughed once before walking up to him and sitting next to him in another chair. “I don’t think she’s hiding.”

“What do you mean?” Roan’s expression turned worried. Had Aletheia died? Had someone else taken her? Now that his greatest fear had come true he found himself weak to the bone.

“What I mean is,” and Echo crossed her legs, exhaustion painted all over her face, “that she left. Theia left for good, Roan, and if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be found.”

“What?” The King was shaking his head. He didn’t listen to her, _couldn’t_ listen to her. He just got up from the chair and reached the bed, where his best swords laid in their sheaths.

He hadn’t heard Echo move, and when her hand touched his shoulder, he jolted.

“She left, Roan,” she stated, skin pale from tiredness and restlessness. “She tried to warn you. Damn, she tried to warn _me_ too. She tried to tell us both we were hurting her - maybe me more than you. And we just didn’t listen for we thought we were doing good - you having some fun and I protecting my King. And in the meanwhile we weren’t protecting her, we weren’t _loving_ her like she deserved. You weren’t there last year, so maybe you don’t understand, but _I should have_.” For the first time ever since they had met, Roan could see tears in Echo’s eyes, and he knew she was going to cry again, once alone. “We failed her - you as a husband and I as a sister. Maybe this is what we deserve, how the gods decided to punish us for what we’ve done. And if she doesn’t want to be found…”

“So what? You’re saying we should give up?” Roan groaned, his grip on the sword he had just raised tightening. “Shouldn’t we make it up to her?”

“We should,” Echo nodded, “but if she doesn’t want to give us the chance to, we won’t go anywhere.”

“I’m not giving up on my wife,” he warned.

“And I’m not giving up on my sister,” Echo smiled, tired. “But sometimes, when you love someone, you should be able to understand when to let go.”

“Stick your philosophies up your ass, Echo,” he groaned again, buckling the belt of the sheath around his waist. “I’m going to look for her and I will bring her back.”

 

But he didn’t find her. It was his fifth day away from Polis and there was no trace of Aletheia.

Maybe Echo was right, he thought, his back against the coarse bark of a tree and his butt on the hard ground. Maybe his wife didn’t want to be found. Maybe he had fucked up the only good thing in his life for good and now there was no way he could fix his mistakes.

And maybe he had deserved it. He thought she was too good for him ever since he had laid eyes on her and the last year spent away from her had changed him too much, turned him into someone way too different from the man he had once been, from the man she had fallen in love with.

He felt like crying. He, the tough warrior, the King, felt like crying like a damn kid. The tears were already there, burning his eyes like fire, scratching his throat.

How did they get to that point? Was it really because of Anka?

 _Of course it is because of Anka_ , a voice whispered inside his head. But she had just been a woman to sleep with, no one important in his life. And yet he hadn’t managed to make his wife understand that.

In that moment he cursed his dick and he cursed himself for he had prefered to take a woman when he had a goddess in his bed.

How stupid had he been?

And now Aletheia was gone and he felt like his throne didn’t mean anything anymore. It was just another chair, his crown was just a pointless weight on his head. And his kid had died because of him, left the world before even seeing it. And Lethe, _his_ Lethe, had tried to kill herself because he had been too stupid, too greedy, too blinded by power and anger and hate. He had sworn his utmost loyalty and love to her and he had failed her, betrayed her, cheated on her, treated her like she was nothing.

And this was what he deserved.

Yet, even if he now saw his mistakes, even if he saw, in his memory, all the signals she had given him, he could not accept it, could not stand it. She should have given him a second chance, should have let him prove himself and his love and his good intentions. She should have stayed, become Queen, ruled side by side with him while she learned how to love him again.

His horse’s muzzle touched his knee a few times before Roan came back to reality and to the rain furiously pouring down from the dark sky.

He let out a desperate scream, awakening the forest around him, and grabbed the horse’s reins, helping himself to his feet. And then, right as he was about to hop onto the animal’s back, he saw her as clear as day. She was standing at the other side of the clearing, wearing the white nightgown he had always seen her wearing at night. She was staring at him, rain dripping down her wet hair, hands resting to her sides. She was barefoot, he noticed just as the horse neighed.

And when she took a few steps back, he sprinted in her direction, but Lethe started to run too, and soon the trees were flying by, a confused stain on either side of him.

He could hear her laugh and suddenly his mind went six years back.

It had been raining that day, too, and they had both just finished training, even if they didn’t train together. She had smiled to him, her training clothes attached to her skin because of the rain, before sprinting off in the direction of the woods, turning a few times to check whether he was following her. And damn, had he followed her!

And just as that day, they both stopped in the middle of the forest. Lethe was panting, the white material of the nightgown sticking to her chest like a second skin, turned almost transparent by the furious rain.

She laughed, still breathing heavily, before shaking her head. “What are you staring at?” Both her words and her voice tone were the same as the ones she had used that day, many years before.

Lethe felt just as real: he could almost see goosebumps on her skin and her wet hair and nightgown moved when the wind rose.

“You,” and suddenly he was back home and the _trikru_ trees weren’t _trikru_ anymore. They were Azgeda and they felt right around him, almost as he belonged there. And just as that day, he approached her, his hands running up and down her arms.

They stared at each other for many minutes, too many for them to count, before Roan let out a chuckle.

And as that day, the words left his lips without him being able to stop them. “ _Ai hod you in_ ,” and those four words hung in the cold air.

The wind rose again so strong he had to close his eyes to prevent the rain from blinding him. And when he opened them again, Lethe wasn’t there anymore, his hands still resting mid-air right where her arms had been.

She wasn’t there and a stupid ‘ _ai hod you in_ ’ couldn’t save him now.

 

He was probably going nuts and there was nothing Echo could say or do to bring him back to sanity. And when he participated in the conclave, he didn’t care if he lived or died anymore. He didn’t care whether Azgeda made it into the bunker or if his people were doomed to die in another _Praimfaya_. He was ready to go for he had nothing left worthy of fighting for, of dying for.

And when Luna attempted to drown him, he almost gave in, almost let go, almost gave up on his chances of finding _her_. But then he heard her again, the faint ‘ _ai hod you in_ ’ she had whispered when he had taken her for the first time, and he knew she was still out there and that he had no better place to die, no better company to leave this world with than her. And so he held his breath, the water of the fountain bringing relief to his skin hurt by the radioactive rain, and wiggled one last time before letting his body go limp.

He was going to find her, no matter what, even if she didn’t want him back: he was going to find her.

 

When he woke up he found himself under a cloudy sky. He could hear the sea washing the shore in the distance and he jolted up into a sitting position. His skin still prickled and the cool breeze was giving him some relief.

He didn’t remember arriving there, though he remembered jumping onto a horse in the dead of night and fleeing Polis. The rain had stopped thirty minutes or so after leaving the city and he remembered going on the whole night before his memories turned to a confused blur.

“Looks who’s up!”

When Roan heard that exclamation, for a minute or two he thought he was still sleeping, or at least hallucinating. But when he turned, she was right there behind him, wearing the same clothes he had seen her in the last time he saw her.

“What are you staring at?”

“You,” and he had to stop himself from chuckling. “What are you doing here?”

Aletheia shrugged her shoulders and leaned against the trunk of a tree. “I kind of have lived here now for almost three months,” she answered, crossing her arms against her chest. “What were _you_ doing out in the forest?”

Even with dirt everywhere on her skin and clothes, she was still as beautiful as the first time he had seen her back in Azgeda.

“I left,” he sighed and stood up. “Why am I here? How did you find me?”

“Your horse came here before dawn. It had your sword attached to its saddle, so I walked the path backwards until I found you,” she explained, her eyes never leaving his. “You’re free to go now.”

“Another _praimfaya_ is coming,” he warned her, taking a few steps in her direction.

She shrugged. “I know.”

“You do?” Roan sounded so surprised Lethe chuckled.

“I guessed something like that. The rain started to burn like acid and I thought it was not normal.”

“Come with me. There’s a bunker on Becca’s island, we can survive there,” he begged her, getting even closer. Now that they were a few inches apart, he noticed she still smelled like home.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, Roan,” she stated, moving away from the tree. “And if it is my time to go, then I’ll just go. There’s nothing left for me in this world.” And she stared into his eyes with such intensity he had to avert her gaze.

“And then I’m staying.” Roan lifted his head again and stared at her. He wanted to touch her so badly, but forced himself not to. She was real and she was there, and for the time being that was enough.

“No, you’re leaving.”

He shook his head. “The end of the world is coming in a few days, or maybe a few hours. And if you die, I die and I want to do it next to you. I took you as my wife, ‘ _to protect you and fight besides you. From this night and all nights to come_ ,’ these were the words.”

“I stopped being your wife the exact moment I found you with her, and you stopped being mine since you didn’t want to.”

He shook his head. “I failed you once, and I’m not failing you again. So we fight together or we die together.”

“What makes you think I’m going to let you stay here?” She tilted her head to the side.

“You will have to kill me to get rid of me this time, Aletheia.”

It felt weird, to be called ‘Aletheia’ by him, but she knew they weren’t the same people they had once been. “You’re in time to reach the island and survive,” she finally spoke and Roan grabbed her by the arms like he had many years ago.

“There’s no survival without you,” he retorted, so close she could feel his breath on her lips. “Even if I reach the island and if I live, without you I’m dead anyways.”

“It didn’t look like this when you pushed me to the point I had to leave.”

“We’re humans, we make mistakes. I hurt you, and I’m aware of this, but now I’m here to make it right for the little time we have left. And if there’s a chance you might die without hating me, then it’ll be worth it.”

Lethe stared at him, her old wound on the belly tickling a little. She could see it in his eyes, the honesty, the pain, maybe the love even if she wasn’t sure he had ever been able of loving her after coming back from his banishment.

She sighed. “There’s a bunker here, my parents used to say it was for those who had to protect the island. It’s not far and we don’t have to die in the fire,” she confessed after some minutes. “We will stay in there until it’s all over. There’s a lot of food stacked and I’ve been studying the manuals to make it work ever since I was a kid. Just… just don’t make me regret it, I might not be able to live it.”

He shook his head no. “We’re connected without an end,” he stated. “I can’t live without you.”**

He walked closer to her slowly, giving her time to step back, but she didn’t. He took her face in his hands, smiling softly, and she could see pain in his blue irises. And when his lips collided against hers, she didn’t pull away, because she knew him and still hoped he was the same Roan she had fallen in love with, and there was no turning back from that point.

 

 

_Haihefa: king_

_Ai hod you in: I love you_

_** Don’t be a ‘nasty bitch’ (as Claudia said) like me and think ‘sexually’, it’s their_ souls _._

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this chapter, consider giving it kudos and/or leaving your thoughts: I'd love to hear what you think of this :-)


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